unting upwards to things higher still, and, though rather young
for the post, are intending to govern us elder men, like the rest of
your family, which has always provided some one who kindly took care of
us.

MENEXENUS: Yes, Socrates, I shall be ready to hold office, if you allow
and advise that I should, but not if you think otherwise. I went to the
council chamber because I heard that the Council was about to choose
some one who was to speak over the dead. For you know that there is to
be a public funeral?

SOCRATES: Yes, I know. And whom did they choose?

MENEXENUS: No one; they delayed the election until tomorrow, but I
believe that either Archinus or Dion will be chosen.

SOCRATES: O Menexenus! Death in battle is certainly in many respects a
noble thing. The dead man gets a fine and costly funeral, although he
may have been poor, and an elaborate speech is made over him by a wise
man who has long ago prepared what he has to say, although he who is
praised may not have been good for much. The speakers praise him for
what he has done and for what he has not done--that is the beauty of
them--and they steal away our souls with their embellished words; in
every conceivable form they praise the city; and they praise those who
died in war, and all our ancestors who went before us; and they praise
ourselves also who are still alive, until I feel quite elevated by their
laudations, and I stand listening to their words, Menexenus, and become
enchanted by them, and all in a moment I imagine myself to have become
a greater and nobler and finer man than I was before. And if, as often
happens, there are any foreigners who accompany me to the speech, I
become suddenly conscious of having a sort of triumph over them, and
they seem to experience a corresponding feeling of admiration at me, and
at the greatness of the city, which appears to them, when they are
under the influence of the speaker, more wonderful than ever. This
consciousness of dignity lasts me more than three days, and not until
the fourth or fifth day do I come to my senses and know where I am; in
the meantime I have been living in the Islands of the Blest. Such is
the art of our rhetoricians, and in such manner does the sound of their
words keep ringing in my ears.

MENEXENUS: You are always making fun of the rhetoricians, Socrates; this
time, however, I am inclined to think that the speaker who is chosen
will not have much to say, for he has been called upon