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
the Blest. Such is the art of our rhetoricians, and in such manner does
the sound of their words keep ringing in my ears.
MENEXENUS: You are always making fun of the rhetoricians, Socrates; this
time, however, I am inclined to think that the speaker who is chosen will
not have much to say, for he has been called upon to speak at a moment's
notice, and he will be compelled almost to improvise.
SOCRATES: But why, my friend, should he not have plenty to say? Every
rhetorician has speeches ready made; nor is there any difficulty in
improvising 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.
MENEXENUS: Do you think not, Socrates?
SOCRATES: Certainly 'not.'
MENEXENUS: Do you think that you could speak yourself if there should be a
necessity, and if the Council were to choose you?
SOCRATES: 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 one who was the best among all the
Hellenes--Pericles, the son of Xanthippus.
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