peachment is the word which the
Athenians use.

EUTHYPHRO: What! I suppose that some one has been prosecuting you, for I
cannot believe that you are the prosecutor of another.

SOCRATES: Certainly not.

EUTHYPHRO: Then some one else has been prosecuting you?

SOCRATES: Yes.

EUTHYPHRO: And who is he?

SOCRATES: A young man who is little known, Euthyphro; and I hardly know
him: his name is Meletus, and he is of the deme of Pitthis. Perhaps you
may remember his appearance; he has a beak, and long straight hair, and
a beard which is ill grown.

EUTHYPHRO: No, I do not remember him, Socrates. But what is the charge
which he brings against you?

SOCRATES: What is the charge? Well, a very serious charge, which shows
a good deal of character in the young man, and for which he is certainly
not to be despised. He says he knows how the youth are corrupted and
who are their corruptors. I fancy that he must be a wise man, and seeing
that I am the reverse of a wise man, he has found me out, and is going
to accuse me of corrupting his young friends. And of this our mother the
state is to be the judge. Of all our political men he is the only one
who seems to me to begin in the right way, with the cultivation of
virtue in youth; like a good husbandman, he makes the young shoots his
first care, and clears away us who are the destroyers of them. This is
only the first step; he will afterwards attend to the elder branches;
and if he goes on as he has begun, he will be a very great public
benefactor.

EUTHYPHRO: I hope that he may; but I rather fear, Socrates, that the
opposite will turn out to be the truth. My opinion is that in attacking
you he is simply aiming a blow at the foundation of the state. But in
what way does he say that you corrupt the young?

SOCRATES: He brings a wonderful accusation against me, which at first
hearing excites surprise: he says that I am a poet or maker of gods, and
that I invent new gods and deny the existence of old ones; this is the
ground of his indictment.

EUTHYPHRO: I understand, Socrates; he means to attack you about the
familiar sign which occasionally, as you say, comes to you. He thinks
that you are a neologian, and he is going to have you up before the
court for this. He knows that such a charge is readily received by the
world, as I myself know too well; for when I speak in the assembly about
divine things, and foretell the future to them, they laugh at me and
think me a madman. Y