will oblige me.

SOCRATES: But I am afraid that you will laugh at me if I continue the
games of youth in old age.

MENEXENUS: Far otherwise, Socrates; let us by all means have the speech.

SOCRATES: 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:--(Thucyd.)

There is a tribute of deeds and of words. The departed have already had
the first, when going forth on their destined journey they were attended
on their way by the state and by their friends; the tribute of words
remains to be given to them, as is meet and by law ordained. For noble
words are a memorial and a crown of noble actions, which are given
to the doers of them by the hearers. A word is needed which will duly
praise the dead and gently admonish the living, exhorting the brethren
and descendants of the departed to imitate their virtue, and consoling
their fathers and mothers and the survivors, if any, who may chance to
be alive of the previous generation. What sort of a word will this be,
and how shall we rightly begin the praises of these brave men? In their
life they rejoiced their own friends with their valour, and their death
they gave in exchange for the salvation of the living. And I think that
we should praise them in the order in which nature made them good, for
they were good because they were sprung from good fathers. Wherefore
let us first of all praise the goodness of their birth; secondly, their
nurture and education; and then let us set forth how noble their actions
were, and how worthy of the education which they had received.

And first as to their birth. Their ancestors were not strangers, nor are
these their descendants sojourners only, whose fathers have come from
another country; but they are the children of the soil, dwelling and
living in their own land. And the country which brought them up is not
like other countries, a stepmother to her children, but their own true
mother; she bore them and nourished them and received them, and in her
bosom they now repose. It is meet and right, therefore, that we should
begin by praising the land which is their mother, and that will be a way
of praising their noble birth.

The country is worthy to be praised, not only by us, but by all mankind;
first, and above all, as being dear to the Gods. This is proved by the
strife and con