to be despised. He says he knows how the youth are corrupted and who are
their corruptors. I fancy that he must be a wise man, and seeing that I am
the reverse of a wise man, he has found me out, and is going to accuse me
of corrupting his young friends. And of this our mother the state is to be
the judge. Of all our political men he is the only one who seems to me to
begin in the right way, with the cultivation of virtue in youth; like a
good husbandman, he makes the young shoots his first care, and clears away
us who are the destroyers of them. This is only the first step; he will
afterwards attend to the elder branches; and if he goes on as he has begun,
he will be a very great public benefactor.

EUTHYPHRO: I hope that he may; but I rather fear, Socrates, that the
opposite will turn out to be the truth. My opinion is that in attacking
you he is simply aiming a blow at the foundation of the state. But in what
way does he say that you corrupt the young?

SOCRATES: He brings a wonderful accusation against me, which at first
hearing excites surprise: he says that I am a poet or maker of gods, and
that I invent new gods and deny the existence of old ones; this is the
ground of his indictment.

EUTHYPHRO: I understand, Socrates; he means to attack you about the
familiar sign which occasionally, as you say, comes to you. He thinks that
you are a neologian, and he is going to have you up before the court for
this. He knows that such a charge is readily received by the world, as I
myself know too well; for when I speak in the assembly about divine things,
and foretell the future to them, they laugh at me and think me a madman.
Yet every word that I say is true. But they are jealous of us all; and we
must be brave and go at them.