damidas said, "Enough
to keep bad men at a distance."

Even when they indulged a vein of pleasantry, one might perceive that
they would not use one unnecessary word, nor let an expression escape
them that had not some sense worth attending to. For one being asked to
go and hear a person who imitated the nightingale to perfection,
answered, "I have heard the nightingale herself." Another said, upon
reading this epitaph,

Victims of Mars, at Selinus they fell,
Who quench'd the rage of tyranny--

"And they deserved to fall, for, instead of _quenching_ it, they should
have let it _burn out_." A young man answered one that promised him some
game-cocks that would stand their death, "Give me those that will be the
death of others." Another seeing some people carried into the country in
litters, said, "May I never sit in any place where I cannot rise before
the aged!" This was the manner of their apophthegms: so that it has been
justly enough observed that the term _lakonizein_ (to act the
Lacedaemonian) is to be referred rather to the exercises of the mind,
than those of the body.

Nor were poetry and music less cultivated among them, than a concise
dignity of expression. Their songs had a spirit, which could rouse the
soul, and impel it in an enthusiastic manner to action. The language was
plain and manly, the subject serious and moral. For they consisted
chiefly of the praises of heroes that had died for Sparta, or else of
expressions of detestation for such wretches as had declined the
glorious opportunity, and rather chose to drag on life in misery and
contempt. Nor did they forget to express an ambition for glory suitable
to their respective ages. Of this it may not be amiss to give an
instance. There were three choirs on their festivals, corresponding with
the three ages of man. The old men began,

Once in battle bold we shone;

the young men answered,

Try us: our vigour is not gone;

and the boys concluded,

The palm remains for us alone.

Indeed, if we consider with some attention such of the Lacedaemonian
poems as are still extant, and get into those airs which were played
upon the flute when they marched to battle, we must agree that Terpander
and Pindar have very fitly joined valour and music together. The former
thus speaks of Lacedaemon,

There gleams the youth's bright falchion: there the muse
Lifts her sweet voice: there awful Justice opes
Her wide pavilio