FRANKNESS I breathe again, for you will not put me to death if you understand how I have acted as regards you. So throw away your stones; or better, keep them. You will make use of them against those who deserve them.

It is curious that this suggestion, though emphasized by being repeated (§ 11), is not worked out.

FRANKNESS Where, pray, and when have I insulted you? I have always consistently admired philosophy and extolled you and lived on intimate terms with the writings that you have left behind. These very phrases that I utter—where else but from you did I get them? Culling them like a bee, I make my show with them before men, who applaud and recognize where and from whom and how I gathered each flower; and although ostensibly it is I whom they admire for the bouquet, as a matter of fact it is you and your garden, because you have put forth such blossoms, so gay and varied in their hues—if one but knows how to select and interweave and combine them so that they will not be out of harmony with one another. Would any man, after receiving this kindly treatment at your hands,-attempt to speak ill of benefactors to whom he owes his reputation? Not unless he be like Thamyris or Eurytus in his nature, so as to raise his voice against the Muses from whom he had the gift of song, or to match himself against Apollo in archery—and he the giver of the bow !

PLATO That speech of yours is good rhetoric, my fine fellow ; but it is directly against your case and only makes your presumptuousness appear more staggering, since ingratitude is now added to injustice. For you got your shafts from us, as you admit, and then turned them against us, making it your only aim to speak ill of us all. That is the way you have paid us for opening that garden to you and not forbidding you to pick flowers and go away with your arms full. For that reason, then, above all else, you deserve to die.

FRANKNESS See! You give me an angry-hearing, and you reject every just plea! Yet I should never have supposed that anger could affect. Plato or Chrysippus or Aristotle or the rest of you; it seemed to me that you, and you alone, were surely far away from anything of that kind. But, however that may be, my masters, do not put me to death unsentenced and unheard. This too was once a trait of yours, not to deal with fellow-citizens on a basis of force and superior strength, but to settle your differences by course of law, according, a hearing and in your turn receiving one. So let us choose a judge, and then you may bring your complaint either jointly or through anyone whom you may elect to represent you all; and I will defend.myself against your charges. Then, if I am proven guilty, and the court passes that verdict upon me, I will submit, of course, to the punishment that I deserve, and you will not have taken it upon yourselves to do anything high-handed. But if after I have undergone my investigation I am found innocent and irreproachable, the jury will discharge me, and you will turn your anger against those who nave misled you and set you against me.

PLATO There we have it! “Cavalry into the open,” so that you may give the slip to the jury and get away.

As cavalry seeks open country to maneuvre in, so the lawyer seeks the courtroom. Compare Plato, Theaetetus, 183d: ἱππέας εἰς πεδίον προκαλεῖ, Σωκράτη εἰς λόγους προκαλούμενος.

FRANKNESS Do not be alarmed on that score. I should not care to have any such referee of suspicious or doubtful character, who would sell me his vote. See, for my part I nominate Philosophy herself to the bench, and you yourselves also!

PLATO And who can conduct the prosecution if we are to be jurors ?

FRANKNESS Be prosecutors and jurors at the same time. Even that arrangement has no terrors for me, since I have so much the better of you in the justice of my case and expect to be so over-stocked with pleas.

PLATO What shall we do, Pythagoras and Socrates ? Really, the man seems to be making a reasonable request in demanding a trial.

SOCRATES What can we do but go to court, taking Philosophy _ with us, and hear his defence, whatever it may be. Prejudgment is not our way ; it is terribly unprofessional, characteristic of hot-headed fellows who hold that might is right. We shall lay ourselves open to hard words from those who like to deal in them if we stone a man who has had no opportunity even to plead his case, especially as we ourselves maintain that we delight in just dealing. What could we say of Anytus and Meletus, who prosecuted me, or of the jurors on that occasion, if this fellow is to die without getting any hearing at all?

Literally, "without getting any water at all"; i.e. any of the time ordinarily allowed for court speeches, which was apportioned with a water-clock.

FRANKNESS Well done, most learned sirs; this course is better and more legal. Keep your stones, however, as I said ; for you will need them presently at court. But where is Philosophy to be found? For my part I do not know where she lives. Yet I wandered very long in search of her dwelling, so that I might study with her. Then I met men with short cloaks and long beards who professed to come directly from her ; and thinking that they knew, I questioned them. But they were far more at a loss than I, and either made no answer, in order that they might not ‘be convicted of ignorance, or else pointed out one door after another. Even to this day I have been unable to find her house.

Often, either by guesswork on my own part or under the guidance of someone else; I would go to a door in the firm belief that at last I had found it, drawing my conclusion from the number of men that came and went, all solemn of countenance, decorous in dress, and studious in looks. So I would thrust myself among them and enter also. Then I always saw a hussy who was far from ingenuous, however much she strove to bring herself into harmony with simplicity and plainness. On the contrary, I perceived at once that she did not leave the apparent disorder of her hair unenhanced by art, nor let her mantle hang about her in unstudied folds. It was patent that she used it all asa make-up and employed her seeming negligence to heighten her attractiveness. There were also evidences of enamel and rouge; her talk was quite that of a courtesan; she delighted in being praised by her lovers for her beauty; she took eagerly any presents that were offered; and she would let her wealthy lovers sit close beside her, but would not even look at those who were poor. And often when she exposed her throat as if by accident, I saw gold necklaces thicker than shackles. Qn observing all this I would withdraw at once, pitying, as you may well believe, those poor unfortunates whom she was leading, not by the nose, but by the beard, and who, like Ixion, embraced but a phantom and not Hera.

PLATO You are right in one point: the door is not conspicuous and not known to all. However, there will be no need to go to her house. We shall wait for her here in the Potters’ Quarter. She will come here presently, no doubt, on her way back from the Academy, to stroll in the Painted Porch also, for it is her custom to do so every day. In fact, here she comes now. Do you see her, the mannerly one, the one in the mantle, soft of eye, walking slowly, rapt in thought?

FRANKNESS I see many who are alike in mantle, walk, and fashion. Yet surely only one, even among then, is the true Philosophy.

PLATO Right, but she will show you who she is, just by speaking.

PHILOSOPHY Ah! What are you all doing in the upper world, Plato and Chrysippus and Aristotle and the rest of you, the very fore-front of my studies? Why have you come back to life? Did anything in the underworld ‘distress you? You certainly appear to be angry. And who is this man whom you have taken into custody? Some ghoul or murderer or profaner of holiness, I suppose.

PLATO “Yes, indeed, Philosophy, the most impious of all profaners, for he made bold to speak ill of you, than whom nothing is more holy, and of us, one and all, who learned something from you and have left it to those who came after us.

PHILOSOPHY Then it made you angry to be vituperated ? And yet you knew that in spite of the hard names which Comedy calls me during the festival of Dionysus, I have held her my friend, and neither sued her at law nor berated her in private, but permit her to make the fun that is in keeping and customary at the festival. I am aware, you see, that no harm can be done by a joke; that, on the contrary, whatever is beautiful shines brighter and becomes more conspicuous, like gold cleansed by its minting. But you, for some reason or other, have grown hot-tempered and violent. Tell me, why do you throttle him?

PLATO "Obtaining leave of absence for this one day, we came to get him, so that he may pay the penalty for what he has done; for rumours repeatedly told us what sort of language he used in public against us.

PHILOSOPHY Then you intend to put him to death before trial, without even a chance to defend himself? It is certainly clear that he wants to make.a statement. PLATO No: we have referred the whole matter to you, and you are to conclude the trial as you think best.

PHILOSOPHY You, there, what do you say?

FRANKNESS Precisely what they do, my Lady Philosophy ; for. you, even without aid, could discover the truth. In fact, it was only with difficulty, after a deal of entreaty, that I secured the reservation of the case for you.

PLATO Now, you scoundrel, you call her “My Lady,” do you? Just the other day you made her out to be . utterly contemptible by offering every form of her doctrines for sale at two obols apiece before so large an audience!

PHILOSOPHY Careful! Perhaps fis abuse was not directed against Philosophy, but against impostors who do much that is vile in oyr name.

FRANKNESS You shall see at once, if you will only hear my defence.

PHILOSOPHY Let us go to the Areopagus, or-rather, to the Acropolis itself, so that at the same time we may get a bird’s eye view of everything in the city.

You, my dears, may walk about in the Painted Porch meanwhile: I shall join you after concluding the trial.

FRANKNESS Who are they, Philosophy? They too seem very mannerly. PHILOSOPHY This one with the masculine air is Virtue; yonder is Temperance, and there beside her Justice ; the one in advance is Culture, and she that is faint and indistinct in colour is Truth.

FRANKNESS I do not see which one you really mean.

PHILOSOPHY Do you not see the unadorned one over there, naked, always shrinking into the background and slipping away? :

FRANKNESS I can just see her now. But why not bring them also, in order that the meeting may be full and perfect? As to Truth, indeed, I wish to introduce her into the trial as an advocate.

PHILOSOPHY To be sure. (To the others) Come with us also. It is not a hard matter to try a single case, particularly one that will involve our own interests.