Dialogues of the Dead

His “Demonstrations of the Existence of a God” is fraught with piety and eloquence; and his “Thoughts on the Education of Daughters” is written with all the feeling which was so constituent a feature in his disposition, and all the knowledge of the female character, which his situation of confessor to a community of that sex had particularly enabled him to acquire.

His theological works are only partially interesting in the present day, being chiefly his arguments in defence of Quietism and his controversies with the Jansenists; but his “Dialogues of the Dead,” and his “Abridgment of the Lives of the Ancient Philosophers,” written, as well as his “Telemachus,” expressly for the instruction of the Duke of Burgundy, will always be regarded as lessons fraught with good sense and instruction in the most delightful form.

Respecting the “Lives of the Ancient Philosophers,” as accompanying this memoir, a few remarks may not be misplaced.

When it first made its appearance, though under the modest title of an Abridgment, and indeed to be considered as a masterly sketch rather than a finished work, it yet made the public acquainted in the most agreeable manner with a body of valuable information before accessible only to the learned.

We were happily found some valuable books, which was by no means extraordinary, having been selected by a minister that truly deserved that title, in whom learning, which was the rage of the times, was but a secondary commendation His taste and good sense being most conspi- conspicuous.

The History of the Church and Empire by Le Seur, Bossuet's Discourses on Universal History, Plutarch's Lives, The History of Venice by Nanni, Ovid's Metamorphoses, La Bruyère, Fontenelle's World, his Dialogues of the Dead, and a few volumes of Molière were soon ranged in my father's closet, where, during the hours he was employed in his business, I daily read them with an avidity and taste uncommon, perhaps unprecedented at my age.

Plutarch presently became my greatest favorite.

The satisfaction I derived from repeated readings I gave this author extinguished my passion for romances, and I shortly preferred Brutus and Aristides to Orondante's Artemius and Juba.

Ba-da-ba-ba-ba.

DIALOGUE ONE Theogenes commissions Polydeux, about to return to the upper world, to inform Oedipus of the actual condition of things in the land of shades, and to deliver admonitory messages to various sorts of men, the rich, the powerful, the proud, and finally to the poor, whom, when they complain of their lot on earth, he is to console by representing the complete equality which prevails in the regions of the dead.

diogenes read by todd polyderches

read by allan mapstone

not a word diogenes about the lacedaemonians for i certainly will not tolerate it but as to what you were saying in regard to the rest i will deliver your messages

let us leave them alone since such is your pleasure do you however convey from me my words to those whom i have before mentioned dialogue one

Dialogue 2 of The Dead by Lucian Translated by Howard Williams This is a LibriVox recording.

All LibriVox recordings are in the public domain.

End of Dialogue 30.

End of Dialogues of the Dead by Lucian.

Translated by Howard Williams.

The hardest part was figuring out where to go.