inculcate the duty of
burying one's father alive or of cutting oneself to bits, but to show
that lack of intelligence means lack of worth; (29) and so he called
upon his hearers to be as sensible and useful as they could be, so that,
be it father or brother or any one else whose esteem he would deserve,
a man should not hug himself in careless self-interest, trusting to mere
relationship, but strive to be useful to those whose esteem he coveted.

(29) i.e. "witless and worthless are synonymous."

But (pursues the accuser) by carefully culling the most immoral
passages of the famous poets, and using them as evidences, he taught his
associates to be evildoers and tyrranical: the line of Hesiod (30) for
instance--

No work is a disgrace; slackness of work is the disgrace--

"interpreted," says the accuser, "by Socrates as if the poet enjoined us
to abstain from no work wicked or ignoble; do everything for the sake of
gain."

(30) "Works and Days," 309 {'Ergon d' ouden oneidos}. Cf. Plat.
"Charm." 163 C.

Now while Socrates would have entirely admitted the propositions that
"it is a blessing and a benefit to a man to be a worker," and that "a
lazy do-nothing is a pestilent evil," that "work is good and idleness
a curse," the question arises, whom did he mean by workers? In his
vocabulary only those were good workmen (31) who were engaged on good
work; dicers and gamblers and others engaged on any other base and
ruinous business he stigmatised as the "idle drones"; and from this
point of view the quotation from Hesiod is unimpeachable--

No work is a disgrace; only idlesse is disgrace.

But there was a passage from Homer (32) for ever on his lips, as the
accuser tells us--the passage which says concerning Odysseus,

What prince, or man of name,
He found flight-giv'n, he would restrain with words of gentlest blame:
"Good sir, it fits you not to fly, or fare as one afraid,
You should not only stay yourself, but see the people stayed."

Thus he the best sort us'd; the worst, whose spirits brake out in
noise, (33) He cudgell'd with his sceptre, chid, and said, "Stay,
wretch, be still, And hear thy betters; thou art base, and both in
power and skill Poor and unworthy, without name in counsel or in
war." We must not all be kings.

(31) See below, III. ix. 9.

(32) "Il." ii. 188 foll., 199 foll. (so Chapman).

(33) Lit. "But whatever man of the people he saw