Menexenus
- Language:
- English
- Translation:
- Benjamin Jowett
- Status:
- Complete work
- Authorship:
- Written by the author
- Condition of the text:
- Clean text
- Extent:
- ~7,580 words · 36 passages
Cite this work
- APAPlato. (n.d.). Menexenus. SigPhi. https://sigphiai.com/en/works/plato/menexenus
- MLAPlato. "Menexenus." SigPhi, https://sigphiai.com/en/works/plato/menexenus.
- ChicagoPlato. Menexenus. SigPhi. https://sigphiai.com/en/works/plato/menexenus.
What it is about
A funeral oration for Athens' war dead, which Socrates claims to have learnt from Aspasia, the companion of Pericles.
Context and history
A disputed text: it looks like patriotic praise and is, most likely, a parody of funeral orations, Pericles' famous one included. The clue is that Socrates mentions events after his own death. Read as satire of rhetoric that exalts the city by lying about its history, it is far more interesting.
Editorial context, not a citable source: unlike the passages of the work itself, these statements cannot be checked against the corpus.
SOCRATES: And what might you be doing at the Council? And yet I need hardly ask, for I see that you, believing yourself to have arrived at the end of education and of philosophy, and to have had enough of them, are mounting 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, th← Back to Plato