12. _Socr._ What then if the laws should say: “Socrates, was it not agreed between us that you should abide by the judgments which the city should pronounce?” And if we should wonder at their speaking thus, perhaps they would say, “Wonder not, Socrates, at what we say, but answer, since you are accustomed to make use of questions and answers. For come, what charge have you against us and the city, that you attempt to destroy us? Did we not first give you being? and did not your father through us take your mother to wife and beget you? Say then, do you find fault with those laws amongst us that relate to marriage as being bad?” I should say, “I do not find fault with them.” “Do you with those that relate to your nurture when born, and the education with which you were instructed? Or did not the laws, ordained on this point, enjoin rightly, in requiring your father to instruct you in music and gymnastic exercises?” I should say, rightly. Well then: since you were born, nurtured, and educated through our means, can you say, first of all, that you are not both our offspring and our slave, as well you as your ancestors? And if this be so, do you think that there are equal rights between us, and whatever we attempt to do to you, do you think you may justly do to us in turn? Or had you not equal rights with your father, or master, if you happened to have one, so as to return what you suffered, neither to retort when found fault with, nor when stricken to strike again, nor many other things of the kind; but that with your country and the laws you may do so; so that if we attempt to destroy you, thinking it to be just, you also should endeavour as far as you are able, in return to destroy us, the laws, and your country, and in doing this will you say that you act justly, you who, in reality, make virtue your chief object? Or are you so wise as not to know that one’s country is more honourable, venerable and sacred, and more highly prized both by gods and men possessed of understanding, than mother and father, and all other progenitors, and that one ought to reverence, submit to, and appease one’s country, when angry, rather than one’s father, and either persuade it or do what it orders, and to suffer quietly if it bids one suffer, whether to be beaten, or put in bonds; or if it sends one out to battle there to be wounded or slain, this must be done, for justice so requires, and one must not give way, or retreat, or leave one’s post; but that both in war, and in a court of justice, and every where, one must do what one’s city and country enjoins, or persuade it in such manner as justice allows: but that to offer violence either to one’s mother or father is not holy, much less to one’s country? What shall we say to these things, Crito? That the laws speak the truth or not? _Cri._ It seems so to me.