CHORUS (singing)
Here are two rivals confident in their powers of oratory and in

the thoughts over which they have pondered so long. Let us see which
will come triumphant" target="_blank" title="a.胜利的；洋洋得意的">triumphant out of the contest. This wisdom, for which my

friends maintain such a persistent fight, is in great danger.
LEADER OF THE CHORUS

Come then, you, who crowned men of other days with so many
virtues, plead the cause dear to you, make yourself known to us.

JUST DISCOURSE
Very well, I will tell you what was the old education, when I used

to teach justice with so much success and when modesty was held in
veneration. Firstly, it was required of a child, that it should not

utter a word. In the street, when they went to the music-school, all
the youths of the same district marched lightly clad and ranged in

good order, even when the snow was falling in great flakes. At the
master's house they had to stand with their legs apart and they were

taught to sing either, "Pallas, the Terrible, who overturneth cities,"
or "A noise resounded from afar" in the solemn tones of the ancient

harmony. If anyone indulged in buffoonery or lent his voice any of the
soft inflexions, like those which to-day the disciples of Phrynis take

so much pains to form, he was treated as an enemy of the Muses and
belaboured with blows. In the wrestling school they would sit with

outstretched legs and without display of any indecency to the curious.
When they rose, they would smooth over the sand, so as to leave no

trace to excite obscene thoughts. Never was a child rubbed with oil
below the belt; the rest of their bodies thus retained its fresh bloom

and down, like a velvety peach. They were not to be seen approaching a
lover and themselves rousing his passion by soft modulation of the

voice and lustful gaze. At table, they would not have dared, before
those older than themselves, to have taken a radish, an aniseed or a

leaf of parsley, and much less eat fish or thrushes or cross their
legs.

UNJUST DISCOURSE
What antiquated rubbish! Have we got back to the days of the

festivals of Zeus Polieus, to the Buphonia, to the time of the poet
Cecides and the golden cicadas?

JUST DISCOURSE
Nevertheless by suchlike teaching I built up the men of

Marathon-But you, you teach the children of to-day to bundle
themselves quickly into their clothes, and I am enraged when I see

them at the Panathenaea forgetting Athene while they dance, and
covering their tools with their bucklers. Hence, young man, dare to

range yourself beside me, who follow justice and truth; you will
then be able to shun the public place, to refrain from the baths, to

blush at all that is shameful, to fire up if your virtue is mocked at,
to give place to your elders, to honour your parents, in short, to

avoid all that is evil. Be modesty itself, and do not run to applaud
the dancing girls; if you delight in such scenes, some courtesan

will cast you her apple and your reputation will be done for. Do not
bandy words with your father, nor treat him as a dotard, nor

reproach the old man, who has cherished you, with his age.
UNJUST DISCOURSE

If you listen to him, by Bacchus! you will be the image of the
sons of Hippocrates and will be called mother's big ninny.

JUST DISCOURSE
No, but you will pass your days at the gymnasia, glowing with

strength and health; you will not go to the public place to cackle and
wrangle as is done nowadays; you will not live in fear that you may be

dragged before the courts for some trifle exaggerated by quibbling.
But you will go down to the Academy to run beneath the sacred olives

with some virtuous friend of your own age, your head encircled with
the white reed, enjoying your ease and breathing the perfume of the

yew and of the fresh sprouts of the poplar, rejoicing in the return of
springtide and gladly listening to the gentle rustle of the plane tree

and the elm. (With greater warmth from here on) If you devote yourself
to practising my precepts, your chest will be stout, your colour

glowing, your shoulders broad, your tongue short, your hips
muscular, but your tool small. But if you follow the fashions of the

day, you will be pallid in hue, have narrow shoulders, a narrow chest,
a long tongue, small hips and a big thing; you will know how to spin

forth long-winded arguments on law. You will be persuaded also to
regard as splendid everything that is shameful and as shameful

everything that is honourable; in a word, you will wallow in
degeneracy like Antimachus.

CHORUS (singing)
How beautiful, high-souled, brilliant is this wisdom that you

practise! What a sweet odour of honesty is emitted by your
discourse! Happy were those men of other days who lived when you

were honoured! And you, seductive talker, come, find some fresh
arguments, for your rival has done wonders.

LEADER OF THE CHORUS
You will have to bring out against him all the battery" target="_blank" title="n.炮兵连；炮台；电池">battery of your

wit, it you desire to beat him and not to be laughed out of court.
UNJUST DISCOURSE

At last! I was choking with impatience, I was burning to upset his
arguments! If I am called the Weaker Reasoning in the schools, it is

just because I was the first to discover the means to confute the laws
and the decrees of justice. To invokesolely the weaker arguments

and yet triumph is an art worth more than a hundred thousand drachmae.
But see how I shall batter down the sort of education of which he is

so proud. Firstly, he forbids you to bathe in hot water. What
grounds have you for condemning hot baths?

JUST DISCOURSE
Because they are baneful and enervate men.

UNJUST DISCOURSE
Enough said! Oh! you poor wrestler! From the very outset I have

seized you and hold you round the middle; you cannot escape me. Tell
me, of all the sons of Zeus, who had the stoutest heart, who performed

the most doughty deeds?
JUST DISCOURSE

None, in my opinion, surpassed Heracles.
UNJUST DISCOURSE

Where have you ever seen cold baths called 'Bath of Heracles'? And
yet who was braver than he?

JUST DISCOURSE
It is because of such quibbles, that the baths are seen crowded

with young folk, who chatter there the livelong day while the gymnasia
remain empty.

UNJUST DISCOURSE
Next you condemn the habit of frequenting the market-place,

while I approve this. If it were wrong Homer would never have made
Nestor speak in public as well as all his wise heroes. As for the

art of speaking, he tells you, young men should not practise it; I
hold the contrary. Furthermore he preaches chastity to them. Both

precepts are equallyharmful. Have you ever seen chastity of any use
to anyone? Answer and try to confute me.

JUST DISCOURSE
To many; for instance, Peleus won a sword thereby.

UNJUST DISCOURSE
A sword! Ah! what a fine present to make him! Poor wretch!

Hyperbolus, the lamp-seller, thanks to his villainy, has gained more
than....do not know how many talents, but certainly no sword.

JUST DISCOURSE
Peleus owed it to his chastity that he became the husband of

Thetis.
UNJUST DISCOURSE