
English: 
Socrates!
I want to speak with you about something.
Whence come you, Menexenus?
Are you from the Agora?
Yes, Socrates.
I have been at the council.
And what you might be doing at the council?
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 will be a public funeral?
Yes, I know.
And whom did they choose?
No one; they delayed the election until tomorrow.
O Menexenus!
Death in battle is certainly in many respects
a noble thing.
The dead man gets a fine and costly funeral
and an elaborate speech is made over him by
a wise man who has long ago prepared what
he has to say.
The speakers praise him - that is the beauty
of them - and they steal away our souls with

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their embellished words, 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.
This feeling lasted up to five days and only
then I came back to my feelings and understood
where I am.
Aah, you are always making fun of the rhetoricians,
Socrates; this time, however, I think that
the chosen speaker will not have too much
to say, since he has been called upon to speak
at a moment's notice, and he will be compelled
almost to improvise.
But why, my friend, should he not have plenty
to say?
Every rhetorician has speeches ready made;
nor is there any difficulty in improvising

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that sort of stuff.
Had the orator to praise Athenians among Peloponnesians,
or Peloponnesians among Athenians, he must
be a good rhetorician who could succeed and
gain credit.
But there is no difficulty in a man's winning
applause when he is contending for fame among
the persons whom he is praising.
Do you think not, Socrates?
Certainly 'not.'
Do you think that you could speak yourself
if you had to, and if the Council were to
choose you?
That I should be able to speak is no great
wonder, Menexenus, considering that I have
an excellent mistress in the art of rhetoric,
- she who has made so many good speakers.
And what would you say if you had to speak?
Nothing of my own, but yesterday I heard Aspasia
composing a funeral oration about these very
dead.
For she had been told, that the Athenians
were going to choose a speaker, and she repeated
to me the sort of speech which he should deliver,
which, I believe, she composed herself.

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And can you remember what Aspasia said?
I ought to be able, for she taught me, and
she was ready to strike me because I was always
forgetting.
Then why will you not rehearse what she said?
Because I am afraid that my mistress may be
angry with me if I publish her speech.
Nay, Socrates, let us have the speech, whether
Aspasia's or any one else's, no matter.
I hope that you will oblige me.
Truly I have such a disposition to oblige
you, that if you bid me dance naked I should
not like to refuse, since we are alone.
Listen then: If I remember rightly, she began
as follows, with the mention of the dead...
A second.
"There is a tribute of deeds and of words.
The departed have already had the first..."
"...and now do you and all, having lamented
the dead in common according to the law, go
your ways."
You have heard, Menexenus, the oration of
Aspasia the Milesian.

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Come on Socrates, she is just a woman, and
since she could compose such a speech, she
must be a rare one.
Well, and do you not admire her, and are you
not grateful for her speech?
Yes, Socrates, I am very grateful to her or
to him who told you, and still more to you
who have told me.
Very good.
But you must take care not to tell of me,
and then at some future time I will repeat
to you many other excellent political speeches
of hers.
Fear not, only let me hear them, and I will
keep the secret.
Well, then I will keep my promise.

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