only friends whom we ought to value are they who know what is good for
us, and can teach it to us: thus, says the accuser, Socrates, by
persuading the youth that he was the wisest of all men, and the most
capable to set others in the right road to wisdom, made them believe that
all the rest of mankind were nothing in comparison with him. I remember,
indeed, to have heard him sometimes talk after this manner of parents,
relations, and friends; and he observed besides, if I mistake not, that
when the soul, in which the understanding resides, is gone out of the
body, we soon bury the corpse; and even though it be that of our nearest
relation, we endeavour to put it out of our sight as soon as decently we
can. Farther, though every man loves his own body to a great degree, we
scruple not nevertheless to take from it all that is superfluous, for
this reason we cut our hair and our nails, we take off our corns and our
warts, and we put ourselves into the surgeons' hands, and endure caustics
and incisions; and after they have made us suffer a great deal of pain,
we think ourselves obliged to give them a reward: thus, too, we spit,
because the spittle is of no use in the mouth, but on the contrary is
troublesome. But Socrates meant not by these, or the like sayings, to
conclude that a man ought to bury his father alive, or that we ought to
cut off our legs and arms; but he meant only to teach us that what is
useless is contemptible, and to exhort every man to improve and render
himself useful to others; to the end that if we desire to be esteemed by
our father, our brother, or any other relation, we should not rely so
much on our parentage and consanguinity, as not to endeavour to render
ourselves always useful to those whose esteem we desire to obtain.

The accuser says further against Socrates, that he was so malicious as to
choose out of the famous poets the passages that contained the worst
instructions, and that he made use of them in a sly manner, to inculcate
the vices of injustice and violence: as this verse of Hesiod,