After1 the State decreed that
those who repose in this tomb, having acquitted themselves as brave men in the
war, should have a public funeral, and appointed me to the duty of delivering
over them the customary speech, I began straightway to study how they might
receive their due tribute of praise; but as I studied and searched my mind the
conclusion forced itself upon me that to speak as these dead deserve was one of
those things that cannot be done. For, since they scorned the love of life that
is inborn in all men and chose rather to die nobly than to live and look upon
Greece in misfortune, how can they have failed to leave behind them a record of
valor surpassing all power of words to express? Nevertheless I propose to treat
the theme in the same vein as those who have previously spoken in this place
from time to time.
Demosthenes. Demosthenes with an English translation by Norman W. DeWitt, Ph.D., and Norman J. DeWitt, Ph.D. Cambridge, MA, Harvard University Press; London, William Heinemann Ltd. 1949.
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