is not given
by money, but that from virtue comes money and every other good of
man, public as well as private. This is my teaching, and if this is the
doctrine which corrupts the youth, I am a mischievous person. But if
any one says that this is not my teaching, he is speaking an untruth.
Wherefore, O men of Athens, I say to you, do as Anytus bids or not
as Anytus bids, and either acquit me or not; but whichever you do,
understand that I shall never alter my ways, not even if I have to die
many times.

Men of Athens, do not interrupt, but hear me; there was an understanding
between us that you should hear me to the end: I have something more to
say, at which you may be inclined to cry out; but I believe that to hear
me will be good for you, and therefore I beg that you will not cry out.
I would have you know, that if you kill such an one as I am, you will
injure yourselves more than you will injure me. Nothing will injure me,
not Meletus nor yet Anytus--they cannot, for a bad man is not permitted
to injure a better than himself. I do not deny that Anytus may, perhaps,
kill him, or drive him into exile, or deprive him of civil rights; and
he may imagine, and others may imagine, that he is inflicting a great
injury upon him: but there I do not agree. For the evil of doing as
he is doing--the evil of unjustly taking away the life of another--is
greater far.

And now, Athenians, I am not going to argue for my own sake, as you may
think, but for yours, that you may not sin against the God by condemning
me, who am his gift to you. For if you kill me you will not easily find
a successor to me, who, if I may use such a ludicrous figure of speech,
am a sort of gadfly, given to the state by God; and the state is a great
and noble steed who is tardy in his motions owing to his very size,
and requires to be stirred into life. I am that gadfly which God has
attached to the state, and all day long and in all places am always
fastening upon you, arousing and persuading and reproaching you. You
will not easily find another like me, and therefore I would advise you
to spare me. I dare say that you may feel out of temper (like a person
who is suddenly awakened from sleep), and you think that you might
easily strike me dead as Anytus advises, and then you would sleep on
for the remainder of your lives, unless God in his care of you sent you
another gadfly. When I say that I am given to you by God, the proof of
my mission is this:--if I