commanding your father to train you in music and gymnastic?" Right, I
should say. "Well then, since you were brought into the world and
nurtured and educated by us, can you deny, in the first place, that
you are our child and slave, as your fathers were before you? And if
this is true, you are not on equal terms with us; nor can you think
that you have a right to do to us what we are doing to you. Would you
have any right to strike or revile or do any other evil to a father or
to your master, if you had one, when you have been struck or reviled
by him, or received some other evil at his hands? You would not say
this? And because we think right to destroy you, do you think that you
have any right to destroy us in return, and your country as far as in
you lies? And will you, O professor of true virtue, say that you are
justified in this? Has a philosopher like you failed to discover that
our country is more to be valued and higher and holier far than mother
or father or any master, and more to be regarded in the eyes of the
gods and of men of understanding; also to be soothed, and gently and
reverently entreated when angry, even more than a father, and if not
persuaded, obeyed? And when we are punished by her, whether with
imprisonment or stripes, the punishment is to be endured in silence;
and if she lead us to wounds or death in battle, thither we follow as
is right; neither may any one yield or retreat or leave his rank, but
whether in battle, or in a court of law, or in any other place, he
must do what his city and his country order him, or he must change
their view of what is just; and if he may do no violence to his father
or mother, much less may he do violence to his country." What answer
shall we make to this, Crito? Do the laws speak truly, or do they not?

_Crito_: I think that they do.

_Socrates_: Then the laws will say: "Consider, Socrates, if this is
true, that in your present attempt you are going to do us wrong. For,
after having brought you into the world, and nurtured and educated
you, and given you and every other citizen a share in every good that
we had to give, we further proclaim and give the right to every
Athenian that if he does not like us when he has come of age and has
seen the ways of the city, and made our acquaintance, he may go where
he pleases and take his goods with him; and none of our laws will
forbid him or interfere with him. Any of you who does not like us and
the city, and who wa