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