“If you follow my advice, first of all I shall show
you many works of men of old, tell you their

 

wondrous deeds and words, and make you conversant
with almost all knowledge, and I shall ornament your
soul, which concerns you most, with many noble
adornments—temperance, justice, piety, kindliness,
reasonableness, understanding, steadfastness, love of
all that is beautiful, ardour towards all that is sublime ;
for these are the truly flawless jewels of the soul.
Nothing that came to pass of old will escape you;
and nothing that must now come to pass; nay, you
will even foresee the future with me. In a word,
I shall speedily teach you everything that there is,
whether it pertains to the gods or to man.

 

“You who are now the beggarly son of a nobody,
who have entertained some thought of so illiberal a
trade, will after a little inspire envy and jealousy
in all men, for you will be honoured and lauded, you
will be held in great esteem for the highest qualities
and admired by men_ preeminent in lineage and in
wealth, you will wear clothing such as this”—she
pointed to her own, and she was very splendidly
dressed—“and will be deemed worthy of office and
precedence. If ever you go abroad, even on foreign
soil you will not be unknown or inconspicuous, for
will attach to you such marks of identification that
everyone who sees you will nudge his neighbour and
point you out with his finger, saying, ‘There he is!’

 

If anything of grave import befalls your friends or
even the entire city, all will turn their eyes upon
you; and if at any time you chance to make a
speech, the crowd will listen open-mouthed, marvelling and felicitating you upon your eloquence and
your father upon his good fortune. They say that
some men become immortal. I shall bring this to pass


 

with you; for though you yourself depart from life, you
will never cease associating with men of education and
conversing with men of eminence. You know whose
son Demosthenes was, and how great I made him.
You know that Aeschines was the son of a tambourine girl, but for all that, Philip paid court to him
for my sake. And Socrates himself was brought upunder the tutelage of our friend Sculpture, but as
soon as he understood what was better he ran away
from her and joined my colours ; and you have heard
how his praises are sung by everyone.