Funeral Oration

If I believed it possible, friends who are attending this burial, to set forth in speech the valor of the men who lie here, I should have reproved those who gave me but a few days’ notice of having to speak over them. But as all mankind would find all time insufficient for preparing a speech to match their deeds, the city itself therefore, as I think, taking forethought for those who speak here, makes the appointment at short notice, in the belief that on such terms they will most readily obtain indulgence from their hearers.