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"At worst," answered Lamprocles, "I never did nor said anything that might make her blush." "Alas!" said Socrates, "is it more difficult for you to hear in patience the hasty expressions of your mother, than it is for the comedians to hear what they say to one another on the stage when they fall into the most injurious reproaches?
Further evidence of the deep reverence for his mother is seen in Memorabilia where his eldest son, Lamprocles, finds fault with his mother, and Socrates, though apparently entertaining very little love for his wife, yet takes up a defensive attitude towards her and offers the following argument to his son: "Yet you are displeased at your mother, although you well know that whatever she says, she not only says nothing with intent to do you harm, but that she wishes you more good than any other human being.
I heartily wish, my dear Aristippus, that you should make such an improvement of those divine instructions, as that you too may make such a happy choice as may render you happy during the future course of your life." Socrates observing his eldest son Lamprocles in a rage with his mother, spoke to him in this manner: "Come hither, my son.
Lamprocles granted this consequence, and Socrates continued "Can there be any stricter obligations than those that children are laid under to their parents?
When one of the sons of Socrates, Lamprocles, came to him complaining that the mother, Xanthippe, treated him so hardly that he could not bear it, the philosopher, by kindly questions, led the boy to acknowledge his great debt to her for her care of him in infancy and in sickness, and, by showing the many things Xanthippe had to try her patience, persuaded him to bear with her and to give her that love which was her due.
"Undoubtedly," answered Lamprocles, "if my mother had done all this, and an hundred times as much, no man could suffer her ill-humours?" "Do not you think," said Socrates, "that the anger of a beast is much more difficult to support than that of a mother?" "Not of a mother like her," said Lamprocles. Socrates continued, "What strange thing has she done to you?
If report is true he had a scolding wife the name of Xanthippe has become a proverb and yet what more noble than Socrates' rebuke to his son when he behaved undutifully towards his mother? Where else in all literature will you find a more exalted statement of the duty we all owe our parents than in Socrates' dialogue with Lamprocles, his son, as recorded in the Memorabilia of Xenophon?
"I think so too," answered Lamprocles. Socrates went on: "Have you never considered of what nature this injustice is?
"Are you then so abandoned, Lamprocles," replied Socrates, "that you would take pains to acquire the goodwill of those persons, and yet will do nothing to your mother, who loves you incomparably better than they?
Have you ever heard of a certain sort of men, who are called ungrateful?" "Very often," answered the young man. "And do you know," said Socrates, "why they are called so?" "We call a man ungrateful," answered Lamprocles, "who, having received a kindness, does not return the like if occasion offers." "I think, therefore," said Socrates, "ingratitude is a kind of injustice?"
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