Socrates' Sacrifice

In the agora or out on the street Wherever public figures I did meet In conversation I loved to engage Only to find my questions would enrage I chipped and chipped at their exterior Their words hollow with no interior My young disciples would heartily laugh At my victims' unease and ev'ry gaffe My deft manner of the question quizzical Drove them to plot a bitter reprisal My daemon urged me to expose deceit My mission became to puncture conceit Fake news my furious foes spread about And brought me to court my campaign to rout Charged with corrupting Athenian youth In defence I spoke nothing but the truth They turned a deaf ear and they paid no heed So inflamed were they by this irksome deed The verdict of guilty came as no shock My sentence-to die by drinking hemlock They hoped I would flee this condemnation I chose to keep the laws of my nation To the shame of Athens, I preferred death Affirming my content with my last breath In my drinking of the draught down, they saw How much I honoured the virtue of law.