Menexenus : From the agora, Socrates, and the Council Chamber.
Socrates : And what was it took you specially to the Council Chamber ? But of course it was because you deem yourself to be at the end of your education and philosophic studies, and being sufficiently versed, as you think, in these, you are minded to turn to graver matters ; and you at your age, my marvellous youth, are attempting to govern us older men, lest your house [234b] should ever fail in providing us with a succession of managers.
Menexenus : Certainly if you, Socrates, allow and counsel me to govern, I shall do so gladly ; but otherwise not. This time, however, I went to the Council Chamber because I had learnt that the Council was going to select someone to make an oration over the dead ; for you know that they propose to arrange for funeral rites.
Socrates : Yes, I do. And whom did they select ?
Menexenus : Nobody : they postponed it till tomorrow. I fancy, however, that Archinus will be selected, or Dion.
[234c] Socrates : In truth, Menexenus, to fall in battle seems to be a splendid thing in many ways. For a man obtains a splendid and magnificent funeral even though at his death he be but a poor man ; and though he be but a worthless fellow, he wins praise, and that by the mouth of accomplished men who do not praise at random, but in speeches prepared long beforehand. And they praise in such splendid fashion, that, what with their ascribing to each one both what he has and what he has not, [235a] and the variety and splendor of their diction, they bewitch our souls ; and they eulogize the State in every possible fashion, and they praise those who died in the war and all our ancestors of former times and ourselves who are living still ; so that I myself, Menexenus, when thus praised by them feel mightily ennobled, and every time I listen fascinated I am exalted and imagine myself to have become all at once taller and nobler [235b] and more handsome. And as I am generally accompanied by some strangers, who listen along with me, I become in their eyes also all at once more majestic ; for they also manifestly share in my feelings with regard both to me and to the rest of our City, believing it to be more marvellous than before, owing to the persuasive eloquence of the speaker. And this majestic feeling remains with me for over three days : so persistently does the speech and voice [235c] of the orator ring in my ears that it is scarcely on the fourth or fifth day that I recover myself and remember that I really am here on earth, whereas till then I almost imagined myself to be living in the Islands of the Blessed, — so expert are our orators.Menexenus : You are always deriding the orators, Socrates. And truly I think that this time the selected speaker will not be too well prepared ; for the selection is being made without warning, so that the speaker will probably be driven to improvise his speech.
[235d] Socrates : Why so, my good sir ? Each one of these men has speeches ready made ; and what is more, it is in no wise difficult to improvise such things. For if it were a question of eulogizing Athenians before an audience of Peloponnesians, or Peloponnesians before Athenians, there would indeed be need of a good orator to win credence and credit ; but when a man makes his effort in the presence of the very men whom he is praising, it is no difficult matter to win credit as a fine speaker.Menexenus : You think not, Socrates ?
Socrates : Yes, by Zeus, I certainly do.
[235e] Menexenus : And do you think that you yourself would be able to make the speech, if required and if the Council were to select you ?Socrates : That I should be able to make the speech would be nothing wonderful, Menexenus ; for she who is my instructor is by no means weak in the art of rhetoric ; on the contrary, she has turned out many fine orators, and amongst them one who surpassed all other Greeks, Pericles, the son of Xanthippus.
Menexenus : Who is she ? But you mean Aspasia, no doubt.
Socrates : I do ; and also Connus the son of Metrobius ; [236a] for these are my two instructors, the one in music, the other in rhetoric. So it is not surprising that a man who is trained like me should be clever at speaking. But even a man less well taught than I, who had learnt his music from Lamprus and his rhetoric from Antiphon the Rhamnusian, — even such a one, I say, could none the less win credit by praising Athenians before an Athenian audience.
Menexenus : What, then, would you have to say, if you were required to speak ?
Socrates : Nothing, perhaps, myself of my own invention ; [236b] but I was listening only yesterday to Aspasia going through a funeral speech for these very people. For she had heard the report you mention, that the Athenians are going to select the speaker ; and thereupon she rehearsed to me the speech in the form it should take, extemporizing in part, while other parts of it she had previously prepared, as I imagine, at the time when she was composing the funeral oration which Pericles delivered ; and from this she patched together sundry fragments.
Menexenus : Could you repeat from memory that speech of Aspasia ?
Socrates : Yes, if I am not mistaken ; for I learnt it, to be sure, from her as she went along, [236c] and I nearly got a flogging whenever I forgot.
Menexenus : Why don’t you repeat it then ?
Socrates : But possibly my teacher will be vexed with me if I publish abroad her speech.
Menexenus : Never fear, Socrates ; only tell it and you will gratify me exceedingly, whether it is Aspasia’s that you wish to deliver or anyone else’s ; only say on.
Socrates : But you will probably laugh me to scorn if I, at my age, seem to you to be playing like a child.
Menexenus : Not at all, Socrates ; but by all means say on.
Socrates : Nay, then, I must surely gratify ; you for indeed I would almost gratify you [236d] if you were to bid me strip and dance, now that we two are alone. Listen then. In her speech, I believe, she began by making mention of the dead men themselves in this wise :
“In respect of deeds, these men have received at our hands what is due unto them, endowed wherewith they travel their predestined road ; for they have been escorted forth in solemn procession publicly by the City and privately by their kinsfolk. But in respect of words, the honor that remains still due to these heroes the law enjoins us, and it is right, to pay in full. [236e] For it is by means of speech finely spoken that deeds nobly done gain for their doers from the hearers the meed of memory and renown. And the speech required is one which will adequately eulogize the dead and give kindly exhortation to the living, appealing to their children and their brethren to copy the virtues of these heroes, and to their fathers and mothers and any still surviving ancestors offering consolation. [237a] Where then could we discover a speech like that ? Or how could we rightly commence our laudation of these valiant men, who in their lifetime delighted their friends by their virtue, and purchased the safety of the living by their deaths ? We ought, in my judgement, to adopt the natural order in our praise, even as the men themselves were natural in their virtue. And virtuous they were because they were sprung from men of virtue.