 What are you doing at the courthouse Socrates? Why have you left the Lyceum? Surely you're not bringing legal action, as I am. It's not an action, Euthyphro. Indictment is the word the Athenians use. What? Someone must have indicted you. I can't believe that you have indicted someone else. Certainly not. Then someone has indicted you. Yes. Who is he? I hardly know him, Euthyphro. He's not well known. He's a young man named Miletus from Pithas. Perhaps you have seen him. He has long, straight hair and nose like a beak and a downy beard. No, I don't remember him, Socrates. What's the charge? The charge? It's a serious one, showing a lot of character in the young man. He shouldn't be despised for that. He says he knows how young people are corrupted and who corrupts them. I suppose he must be a wise man who, seeing that I am anything but wise, has found me out and is going to accuse me of corrupting his young friends. Our mother, the state, is to be the judge of this. He's the only one of our politicians who starts the right way by cultivating the young. He's like a good farmer taking care of the sprouts, weeding out those of us who destroy them. That's his first step. Later he will attend to the older branches. If he continues, as he has begun, he will be a great public benefactor. I hope so, Socrates, but I fear that it will be the other way around. In my opinion, he's aiming a blow at a sacred part of the state by attacking you. But how does he say that you corrupt the young? He makes a strange accusation, one that is surprising on first hearing. He says that I am a poet, a creator of gods. I make new gods and deny the existence of old ones. That's the ground of his indictment. I understand Socrates. He's attacking you because of the divine sign which you say occasionally comes to you. He thinks that you're a heretic, and he's bringing you into court for that reason. He knows that such charges are readily accepted, because the world is always resentful of anything new in religion. For example, when I speak in the assembly about divine matters and predict the future, they laugh at me as if I'm insane. Yet every word I say is true. They're simply jealous of us, so we should be brave and not mind them. Euthyphoro, my friend, they're laughter of little importance. You may be considered wise, but the Athenians pay little attention until you make other people wise. Then for some reason, perhaps as you suggest, from jealousy they become angry. I have no desire to test them. You make yourselves— Sample complete. Ready to continue?