Laches

Recommended translations:

  • "Laches," trans. J. Nichols, Jr.  in The Roots of Political Philosophy, ed. Thomas L. Pangle (Cornell, 1987).
  • "Laches," trans. R. K. Sprague  in Plato: Complete Works, ed. J. M. Cooper (Hackett, 1997).

Excerpt:

Lysimachus
You have seen the performance of the man fighting in armour, Nicias and Laches; but my friend Melesias and I did not tell you at the time our reason for requesting you to come and see it with us. However, we will tell you now; for we think we should speak our minds freely to friends like you. Some people, of course, pour ridicule on such appeals, and when consulted for their advice will not say what they think, but something different, making the inquirer’s wishes their aim, and speaking against their own judgement. But you, we consider, not merely have the necessary discernment but will give us the benefit of it in telling us just what is in your minds and hence we have enlisted your counsel on the question which we are about to lay before you. Now the matter about which I have made all this long preamble is this: we have two sons here, my friend that one, called Thucydides after his grandfather, and I this one; he also is named in the same way, after my father; we call him Aristeides. Well, we have resolved to give them our most constant care, and not—as most fathers do when their boys begin to be young men—let them run loose as their fancy leads them, but begin forthwith taking every possible care of them. Now, knowing that you too have sons, we thought that you above all men must have concerned yourselves with the question of the kind of upbringing that would make the best of them.

Online:
Amazon (Recommended Translation: Nichols)
Amazon (Recommended Translation: Sprague)
Project Perseus (English, Free Access)
Project Perseus (Greek, Free Access)
Project Gutenberg (Free Access)