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.
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