Socrates

MELITUS:

Ushers! Take Socrates to prison immediately.

DRIXA:

And there let him be burned without having been heard.

ONE OF THE JUDGES:

Ah! He must at least be heard! We cannot infringe the law.

ANITUS: What this fine, pious man means is – he must be heard, but one cannot be surprised by what he says. For you know these philosophers are diabolically clever. Where we bring harmony, they disturb all the Estates.

MELITUS:

To prison! to prison!

(Xantippe, Sophronine, Aglaea enter. Then Socrates, enchained.)

XANTIPPE: Ah, mercy! They are dragging my husband to prison. Honorable judges, aren't you ashamed to treat a man of his age thus? What evil could he do? He is incapable of it. Alas, he's more stupid than bad. Gentlemen, take pity on him. Indeed, I told you, my husband, that you would get yourself into some bad business. That's what comes of dowering girls. How unhappy I am!

SOPHRONINE: Ah, gentlemen. Respect his age and his virtue. Put me in irons. I am ready to give my liberty and my life for his.

AGLAEA: Yes. We will go to prison in place of him. We will die for him if need be. Don't seek the life of the greatest of men. Take us for your victims.

MELITUS:

You see how he corrupts the youth!

SOCRATES: Cease, my wife; cease, my children to set yourselves up in opposition to the will of heaven. It is manifesting itself through the organ of the laws. Whoever resists the law is unworthy of being a citizen. God wished that I be put in irons; I submit to his decrees without a murmur. In my house, in Athens, in a prison cell, I am equally free. And in you I see so much sincere gratitude, so much friendship that I am still happy. What does it matter whether Socrates sleeps in his room or in an Athenian prison? Everything is in the eternal order of things and my will must be there.

MELITUS: Let them take away this dialectician. That's how they all are. They press you with arguments right under the gallows.

ANITUS: Gentlemen, what has just been said touches me. This man shows good disposition. I flatter myself I am able to convert him. Let me speak to him a moment in private. And order his wife and these young people to retire.

A JUDGE: We indeed wish it, venerable Anitus. You can speak to him before he appears before our tribunal.

(They exit leaving Socrates alone with Anitus.)

ANITUS:

Virtuous Socrates, my heart bleeds to see you in this condition.

SOCRATES:

You actually have a heart?

ANITUS:

Yes, and I am ready to do everything for you.

SOCRATES:

Really? I'm convinced you've done much already.

ANITUS: Listen. Your situation is more dangerous than you think. It goes to your life.

SOCRATES:

Then it's a question of a little thing.

ANITUS: It's little to your intrepid and sublime soul. To the eyes of those who cherish, as I do, your virtue, it's everything. Believe me, with whatever philosophy your souls may be armed, it is hard to perish by execution. That's not all: your reputation which must be dear to you will be tarnished throughout the centuries. Not only will all the bigots laugh over your death, they will insult you, light the pyre on which you will burn if they burn you, tighten the rope if they strangle you, grind the Hemlock if they poison you. But they will render your memory execrable to the entire future. You can easily avoid such a funereal end. I will answer for saving your life, and even will have you declared by the judges to be the wisest of men, as you were by the oracle of Apollo. It's only a question of giving me your pupil Aglaea. With the dowry you are giving her, understood. We can easily break off her marriage with Sophronine. You will enjoy a peaceable and honorable old age and the gods and goddesses will bless you.

SOCRATES:

Guards! Take me to prison without further delay.

(They lead him away.)

ANITUS: This man is incorrigible. It's not my fault. I have nothing to reproach myself with. He must be abandoned to his reprobate opinions and allowed to die unrepentant.

CURTAIN

ACT III

(The Judges are seated on a tribunal. Socrates is standing.)

A JUDGE: (to Anitus)

You mustn't sit here. You are a priest of Ceres.

ANITUS:

I am only here for edification.

MELITUS: Silence. Listen, Socrates, you are accused of being a bad citizen; of corrupting the youth; of denying the plurality of the gods; of being a heretic, deist, atheist. Answer.

SOCRATES: Athenian Judges, I exhort you always to be good citizens as I have always tried to be. To shed your blood for the country as I have done in more than one battle. Regarding the youth of which you speak, do not cease to guide them through your admonitions, and especially by your examples; teach them to love true virtue, and to flee the wretched philosophy of the school; the article of the plurality of the gods is a bit difficult to discuss, but you will easily understand me. Athenian Judges, there is only one God.

MELITUS AND ANOTHER JUDGE:

Oh, the knave.

SOCRATES: There is only one God, I tell you. His nature is to be infinite. No being can share his infinity with him. Raise your eyes toward the celestial globes, turn them towards earth and the sea. All corresponds, all is made for each other. Each being is intimately linked to other beings. Everything is of the same design. There is only a single architect, a single master, a single guardian. Perhaps he's deigned to form some genies, some demons, more powerful and more enlightened than men. And if they exist they are creatures like you; they are his first subjects and not gods at all. But nothing in nature advertises to us that they exist, while all nature announces to us one God and one Father. This God has no need of Mercury and Iris to signify his orders. He has only to will it and that's enough. If by Minerva, you understand only the wisdom of God, if by Neptune you intend only his immutable laws which raise and lower the seas, I would say to you: He allows you to revere Neptune and Minerva, since under these emblems you are still adoring only the eternal Being, and so long as you are not giving occasion to people to misunderstand it.

ANITUS:

What impious balderdash.