into religion; and he is going into court knowing that such matters are easily misrepresented to the multitude, and consequently meaning to slander you there. Why, they laugh even me to scorn, as if I were out of my mind, when I talk about divine things in the assembly, and tell them what is going to happen and yet I have never foretold anything which has not come true. But they are jealous of all people like us. We must not think about them: we must meet them boldly.
III. Socr. My dear Euthyphron, their ridicule is not a very serious matter. The Athenians, it seems to me, may think a man to be clever without paying him much attention, so long as they do not think that he teaches his wisdom to others. But as soon as they think that he makes other people clever, they get angry whether it be from jealousy, as you say, or for some other reason.
Euth. I am not very anxious to try their disposition towards me in this matter.
Socr. No, perhaps they think that you seldom show yourself, and that you are not anxious to teach your wisdom to others; but I fear that they may think that I am; for my love of men makes me talk to every one whom I meet quite freely and unreservedly, and without payment: indeed, if I could, I would gladly pay people myself to listen to me. If then, as I said just now, they were only going to laugh at me, as you say they do at you, it would not at all an unpleasant way of spending the