5
But I will tell you how, in thinking to do me an outrage, you made yourselves ridiculous. You asserted that it was an intrusion when I associated and talked with you; that despite all your efforts you did not know how to get rid of me; and finally, that it was against your will that you went with me on a mission to Eleusis. In making these statements you think you are defaming me, but you only reveal yourselves as utter dunderheads; for you were covertly abusing the same man whom at the same moment you were openly treating as a friend!
6
You ought to have refrained either from defaming him or from associating with him, and that by an open renunciation of his company. But if you felt that to be dishonorable, how was it dishonorable for you to associate with a man whom you did not even feel it honorable to renounce?
7
And, mark you, I for my part have discovered no ground on which you could reasonably have despised my company. For neither could I see that you were very clever and myself very stupid, nor indeed that you were surrounded with friends and myself destitute of them, nor again that you were wealthy and I poor, nor again that you were in particularly good repute and myself in ill odor, nor were my interests in danger and yours in safety. What reasonable ground, then, had I for suspecting that you were annoyed by my association with you?
8
Moreover, when you made these statements to our newest members, you did not expect that they would report them to us, and there you were, supposing it a fine stroke of cleverness to go round accusing yourselves to everyone of consenting to be in the company of evil men! As to my informant, it would be vain for you to inquire. For, first of all, you know the person who told me, before you ask: how can you not know him, the man to whom you made your statement?
