instructors. From the former of these I learned rhetoric, and from the latter music. There would be nothing wonderful if a man so educated should be capable of great energy of speech. A person who should have been instructed in a manner totally different from me; who should have learned rhetoric from Antiphon the son of Rhamnusius, and music from Lampses, would be competent to succeed in such an attempt as praising the Athenians to the Athenians. MENEXENUS. And what shouldst thou have to say, if thou wert chosen to pronounce the oration? SOCRATES. Of my own, probably nothing. But yesterday I heard Aspasia declaim a funeral oration over these same persons. She had heard, as thou sayest, that the Athenians were about to choose an orator, and she took the occasion of suggesting a series of topics proper for such an orator to select; in part extemporaneously, and in part such as she had already prepared. I think it probable that she composed the oration by interweaving such fragments of oratory as Pericles might have left. MENEXENUS. Rememberest thou what Aspasia said? SOCRATES. Unless I am greatly mistaken. I learned it from her; and she is so good a school-mistress, that I should have been beaten if I had not been perfect in my lesson. MENEXENUS. Why not repeat it to me? SOCRATES. I fear lest my mistress be angry, should I publish her discourse. MENEXENUS. O, fear not. At least deliver a discourse; you will do what is exceedingly delightful to me, whether it be of Aspasia or any other. I intreat you to do me this pleasure. SOCRATES. But you will laugh at me, who, being old, attempt to repeat a pleasant discourse. MENEXENUS. O no, Socrates; I intreat you to speak, however it may be. SOCRATES. I see that I must do what you require. In a little while, if you should ask me to strip naked and dance, I shall be unable to refuse you, at least, if we are alone. Now, listen. She spoke thus, if I recollect, beginning with the dead, in whose honour the oration is supposed to have been delivered. [The Fragments from the Republic also were first given by Mrs. Shelley in the Essays, Letters &c. (1840). See remarks at page 153 of the present volume. Shelley's Notes on these passages are printed in Italics, in order to distinguish them readily from the translations.— H. B. F.] FRAGMENTS OF THE REPUBLIC, TRANSLATED FROM PLATO ; WITH NOTES. I. BUT it would be almost impossible to build your city in such a situation that it would need no imports.Impossible. Other persons would then be required, who might undertake to conduct from another city those things of which they stood in need. Certainly. But the merchant who should return to his own city, without any of those articles which it needed, would return emptyhanded. It will be necessary, therefore, not only to produce a sufficient supply, but such articles, both in quantity and in kind, as may be required to remunerate those who conduct the imports. There will be needed then more husbandmen, and other artificers in our city. There will be needed also other persons who will undertake the conveyance of the imports and the exports, and these persons |