Menexenus (236)

Soc.

I do and; also Connus the son of Metrobius;

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.

Men.

What, then, would you have to say, if you were required to speak?

Soc.

Nothing, perhaps, myself of my own invention;

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.

Men.

Could you repeat from memory that speech of Aspasia?

Soc.

Yes, if I am not mistaken; for I learnt it, to be sure, from her as she went along,

and I nearly got a flogging whenever I forgot.

Men.

Why don’t you repeat it then?

Soc.

But possibly my teacher will be vexed with me if I publish abroad her speech.

Men.

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.

Soc.

But you will probably laugh me to scorn if I, at my age, seem to you to be playing like a child.

Men.

Not at all, Socrates; but by all means say on.

Soc.

Nay, then, I must surely gratify; you for indeed I would almost gratify you

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. 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.