advice, you will spare me. But you, perhaps, being irritated like drowsy
persons who are roused from sleep, will strike me, and, yielding to
Anytus, will unthinkingly condemn me to death; and then you will pass
the rest of your life in sleep, unless the deity, caring for you, should
send some one else to you. But that I am a person who has been given by
the deity to this city, you may discern from hence; for it is not like
the ordinary conduct of men, that I should have neglected all my own
affairs, and suffered my private interest to be neglected for so many
years, and that I should constantly attend to your concerns, addressing
myself to each of you separately, like a father, or elder brother,
persuading you to the pursuit of virtue. And if I had derived any profit
from this course, and had received pay for my exhortations, there would
have been some reason for my conduct; but now you see yourselves that my
accusers, who have so shamelessly calumniated me in everything else,
have not had the impudence to charge me with this, and to bring
witnesses to prove that I ever either exacted or demanded any reward.
And I think I produce a sufficient proof that I speak the truth,
namely, my poverty.

19. Perhaps, however, it may appear absurd that I, going about, thus
advise you in private and make myself busy, but never venture to present
myself in public before your assemblies and give advice to the city. The
cause of this is that which you have often and in many places heard me
mention; because I am moved by a certain divine and spiritual influence,
which also Melitus, through mockery, has set out in the indictment. This
began with me from childhood, being a kind of voice which, when present,
always diverts me from what I am about to do, but never urges me on.
This it is which opposed my meddling in public politics; and it appears
to me to have opposed me very properly. For be well assured, O
Athenians! if I had long since attempted to intermeddle with politics, I