d run races beneath the sacred olives
along with some modest compeer, crowned with white
reeds, redolent of yew, and careless ease, of
leaf-shedding white poplar, rejoicing in the season of
spring, when the plane-tree whispers to the elm. If you
do these things which I say, and apply your mind to
these, you will ever have a stout chest, a clear
complexion, broad shoulders, a little tongue, large
hips, little lewdness. But if you practise what the
youths of the present day do, you will have in the first
place, a pallid complexion, small shoulders, a narrow
chest, a large tongue, little hips, great lewdness, a
long psephism; and this deceiver will persuade you to
consider everything that is base to be honourable, and
what is honourable to be base; and in addition to this,
he will fill you with the lewdness of Antimachus.

Cho. O thou that practisest most renowned high-towering
wisdom! How sweetly does a modest grace attend your
words! Happy, therefore, were they who lived in those
days, in the times of former men! In reply, then, to
these, O thou that hast a dainty-seeming Muse, it
behooveth thee to say something new; since the man has
gained renown. And it appears you have need of powerful
arguments against him, if you are to conquer the man and
not incur laughter.

Unj. And yet I was choking in my heart, and was longing
to confound all these with contrary maxims. For I have
been called among the deep thinkers the "worse cause" on
this very account, that I first contrived how to speak
against both law and justice; and this art is worth more
than ten thousand staters, that one should choose the
worse cause, and nevertheless be victorious. But mark
how I will confute the system of education on which he
relies, who says, in the first place, that he will not
permit you to be washed with warm water. And yet, on
what principle do you blame the warm baths?

Just. Because it is most vile, and makes a man cowardly.

Unj. Stop! For immediately I seize and hold you by the
waist without escape. Come, tell me, which of the sons
of Jupiter do you deem to have been the bravest in soul,
and to have undergone most labours?

Just. I consider no man superior to Hercules.

Unj. Where, pray, did you ever see cold Herculean