6.  Consider, then, why I mention these things:  it is because I am going to show you whence the calumny against me arose.  For when I heard this, I reasoned thus with myself, What does the god mean?  What enigma is this?  For I am not conscious to myself that I am wise, either much or little.  What, then, does he mean by saying that I am the wisest?  For assuredly he does not speak falsely:  that he could not do.  And for a long time I was in doubt what he meant; afterward, with considerable difficulty, I had recourse to the following method of searching out his meaning.  I went to one of those who have the character of being wise, thinking that there, if anywhere, I should confute the oracle, and show in answer to the response that This man is wiser than I, though you affirmed that I was the wisest.  Having, then, examined this man (for there is no occasion to mention his name; he was, however, one of our great politicians, in examining whom I felt as I proceed to describe, O Athenians!), having fallen into conversation with him, this man appeared to be wise in the opinion of most other men, and especially in his own opinion, though in fact he was not so.  I thereupon endeavored to show him that he fancied himself to be wise, but really was not.  Hence I became odious, both to him and to many others who were present.  When I left him, I reasoned thus with myself:  I am wiser than this man, for neither of us appears to know anything great and good; but he fancies he knows something, although he knows nothing; whereas I, as I do not know anything, so I do not fancy I do.  In this trifling particular, then, I appear to be wiser than he, because I do not fancy I know what I do not know.  After that I went to another who was thought to be wiser than the former, and formed the very same opinion.  Hence I became odious to him and to many others.

7.  After this I went to others in turn, perceiving indeed, and grieving and alarmed, that I was making myself odious; however, it appeared necessary to regard the oracle of the god as of the greatest moment, and that, in order to discover its meaning, I must go to all who had the reputation of possessing any knowledge.  And by the dog, O Athenians! for I must tell you the truth, I came to some such conclusion as this:  those who bore the highest reputation appeared to me to be most deficient, in my researches in obedience to the god, and others who were considered inferior more nearly approaching to the possession of understanding.  But I must relate to you my wandering, and the labors which I underwent, in order that the oracle might prove incontrovertible.  For after the politicians I went to the poets, as well the tragic as the dithyrambic and others, expecting that here I should in very fact find myself more ignorant than they.  Taking up, therefore, some of their poems, which appeared to me most elaborately finished, I questioned them as to their meaning, that at the same time I might learn