27.  Perhaps, however, in speaking to you thus, I appear to you to speak in the same presumptuous manner as I did respecting commiseration and entreaties; but such is not the case, O Athenians! it is rather this:  I am persuaded that I never designedly injured any man, though I can not persuade you of this, for we have conversed with each other but for a short time.  For if there were the same law with you as with other men, that in capital cases the trial should list not only one day, but many, I think you would be persuaded; but it is not easy in a short time to do away with, great calumnies.  Being persuaded, then, that I have injured no one, I am far from intending to injure myself, and of pronouncing against myself that I am deserving of punishment, and from awarding myself any thing of the kind.  Through fear of what? lest I should suffer that which Melitus awards me, of which I say I know not whether it he good or evil?  Instead of this, shall I choose what I well know to be evil, and award that?  Shall I choose imprisonment?  And why should I live in prison, a slave to the established magistracy, the Eleven?  Shall I choose a fine, and to be imprisoned until I have paid it?  But this is the same as that which I just now mentioned, for I have not money to pay it.  Shall I, then, award myself exile?  For perhaps you would consent to this award.  I should indeed be very fond of life, O Athenians! if I were so devoid of reason as not to be able to reflect that you, who are my fellow-citizens, have been unable to endure my manner of life and discourses, but they have become so burdensome and odious to you that you now seek to be rid of them:  others, however, will easily bear them.  Far from it, O Athenians!  A fine life it would be for me at my age to go out wandering, and driven from city to city, and so to live.  For I well know that, wherever I may go, the youth will listen to me when I speak, as they do here.  And if I repulse them, they will themselves drive me out, persuading the elders; and if I do not repulse them, their fathers and kindred will banish me on their account.

28.  Perhaps, however, some one will say, Can you not, Socrates, when you have gone from us, live a silent and quiet life?  This is the most difficult thing of all to persuade some of you.  For if I say that that would be to disobey the deity, and that, therefore, it is impossible for me to live quietly, you would not believe me, thinking I spoke ironically.  If, on the other hand, I say that this is the greatest good to man, to discourse daily on virtue, and other things which you have heard me discussing, examining both myself and others, but that a life without investigation is not worth living for, still less would you believe me if I said this.  Such, however, is the case, as I affirm, O Athenians! though it is not easy to persuade you.  And at the same time I am not accustomed to think myself deserving of any ill.  If, indeed, I were rich, I would amerce myself in such a sum as