and their virtues are attested not only by inscriptions on stone at home; but an unwritten record of the mind lives on for each of them, even in foreign lands, better than any gravestone.
Try to be like these men, therefore: realize that happiness lies in liberty, and liberty in valor, and do not hold back from the dangers of war. Miserable men, who have no hope of prosperity, do not have a just reason to be generous with their lives; no, it is rather those who face the danger of a complete reversal of fortune for whom defeat would make the biggest difference: they are the ones who should risk their lives. Any man of intelligence will hold that death, when it comes unperceived to a man at full strength and with hope for his country, is not so bitter as miserable defeat for a man grown soft.
That is why I offer you, who are here as parents of these men, consolation rather 15 than a lament. You know your lives teem with all sorts of calamities, and that it is good fortune for anyone to draw a glorious end for his lot, as these men have done. While your lot was grief, theirs was a life that was happy as long as it lasted. I know it is a hard matter to dissuade you from sorrow, when you will often be reminded by the good fortune of others of the joys you once had; for sorrow is not for the want of a good never tasted, but for the loss of a good we have been used to having. Yet those of you who are of an age to have children may bear this loss in the hope of having more. On a personal level new children will help some of you forget those who are no more; while the city will gain doubly by this, in population and insecurity. It is not possible for people to give fair and just advice to the state, if they are not exposing their own children to the same danger when they advance a risky policy. As for you who are past having children, you are to think of the greater part of your life as pure profit, while the part that remains is short and its burden lightened by the glory of these men. For the love of honor is the one thing that never grows old, and useless old age takes delight not in gathering wealth (as some say), but in being honored.
As for you who are the children or the brothers of these men, I see that you will have considerable competition. Everyone is used to praising the dead, so that even extreme virtue will scarcely win you a reputation equal to theirs, but it will fall a little short. That is because people envy the living as competing with them, but they honor those who are not in their way, and their good will towards the dead is free of rivalry.
And now, since I must say something about feminine virtue, I shall express it in this brief admonition to you who are now widows: your glory is great if you do not fall beneath the natural condition of your sex, and if you have as little fame among men as is possible, whether for virtue or by way of reproach.
Thus I have delivered, according to custom, what was appropriate in a speech, while those men who are buried here have already been honored by their own actions. It remains to maintain their children at the expense of the city until they grow up. This benefit is the city's victory garland for them and for those they leave
behind after such contests as these, because the city that gives the greatest rewards
for virtue has the finest citizens.
So now, when everyone has mourned for his own, you may go.
UNDERSTANDING THE TEXT
Read the first three paragraphs of Pericles's speech and consider the way he frames the introduction. How does he introduce his major ideas? How effective is the introduction?
Why does Pericles spend so much time praising Athens, its form of government, and its culture? What does this suggest about his real motives in making this speech?
What difference does Pericles see between the way Athens prepares for war and the way its neighbors do? Why is this difference important to the speech?
Pericles tries throughout his speech to increase the hostility of his audience towards Sparta. Find several passages where he does this and explain the effect each would have on the audience and why.
How does Pericles distinguish himself from "long winded orators"? Why does he say so little about the men whose funeral he is speaking at?
What advice does Pericles give to women? Might anything in this passage confirm Plato's argument that it was Aspasia, a woman, who wrote the oration for Pericles to give? Explain.
MAKING CONNECTIONS
Both "The Funeral Oration" and the Women of World War II Memorial (p. 514) were intended to honor soldiers killed in war. With this purpose in mind, what similarities can you find between the two texts?
Compare the way that Pericles treats war with the way that George Orwell does in "Pacifism and the War" (p. 508). Does Pericles treat the enemies of Athens the same way that Orwell treats the threat of fascism? Explain. Which argument do you find most persuasive? Why?
Does Pericles use rhetoric the same way that, according to Plato, dishonest Sophists such as Gorgias do (p. 166)? Is there anything in the text that suggests that Pericles might not believe what he is saying? Explain.
WRITING ABOUT THE TEXT
Write an essay in which you argue for or against the theory that Aspasia actually wrote "The Funeral Oration." Use passages from the text to support your claim.
How does Pericles appeal to emotion and logic in his argument? Write an essay in which you analyze his appeals to each, citing specific passages to support your analysis.
Write an essay in which you compare and contrast the assumptions about war in "The Funeral Oration" with those in Guernica (p. 497), Liberty Leading the People (p. 494), or "Against War" (p. 488). Analyze each text to determine what it says about war, and use passages from the texts (or descriptions of the images) to support your claim.
Examine a twentieth-century speech by a political leader at a time of war and compare it to Pericles' funeral oration, delivered during the Peloponnesian War. Be sure to identify and account for both similarities and differences.
plato
from Gorgias
[380 BCE]
PLATO (circa 428-348 or 347 bce), one of the greatest philosophers of the ancient world, came of age during an era of almost perpetual warfare. In 431 bce, the Peloponnesian War between his native Athens and the militaristic city-state of Sparta began. The war lasted for twenty-seven years, during which time Plato grew up in an aristocratic family and became a disciple of the Greek philosopher Socrates. When the war ended in Athens's total defeat, the Athenian assembly tried and executed Socrates, who had been one of the war's strongest critics. Officially, Socrates was charged with impiety and corrupting the young, but Plato felt that his mentor had been executed because he had spent years engaging the city's people in conversations designed to unmask their foolishness and hypocrisy. Plato recorded Socrates' trial in his Apology.
The war and Socrates's execution affected Plato deeply; he saw both as fruits of Athens's unwise government, in which an assembly of ordinary men made decisions that affected the entire state. Masterminded by a few very persuasive speakers who managed to build consensus within the assembly, these events made Plato especially suspicious of the art of rhetoric, which, he felt, focused on persuasion at the expense of truth. He believed that important questions should be decided by wise leaders and not be subjected to public debate and popular vote.
For Plato, the figures that symbolized rhetoric's dangers were the Sophists, a group of teachers—most of them foreign—who had set up successful schools of rhetoric in Athens. Sophists often taught that the truth of a situation depended on one's perspective, that any argument could be effective if presented well, and that "winning" a debate was more important than discovering the truth. All of these views were anathema to Plato, who believed that the most important thing in life was to discover the truth.