---
title: A Laconic Answer. — Fifty Famous Stories Retold · full text with trees
description: A Laconic Answer., «Fifty Famous Stories Retold» by James Baldwin: the whole chapter, every sentence with its dependency tree and pragmatics. It begins: Many miles beyond Rome there was a famous country which we call Greece.
---

<!-- md -->
[Mova](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/) · [this page in HTML](https://mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg18442/35/)

<!-- crumbs -->
[home](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/) / [corpora](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/) / [tales](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/) / [Fifty Famous Stories Retold](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg18442/) / A Laconic Answer.

# A Laconic Answer.

<!-- .vabout -->
A Laconic Answer. of «Fifty Famous Stories Retold» by James Baldwin: the whole text, 14 sentences and 287 words. Every sentence has its own page with its syntax tree and pragmatics, parsed by Mova itself.

<!-- list vl: b t e -->
- [1](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg18442/35/1/) — Many miles beyond Rome there was a famous country which we call Greece.
- [2](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg18442/35/2/) — The people of Greece were not u-nit-ed like the Romans; but instead there were sev-er-al states, each of which had its own rulers.
- [3](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg18442/35/3/) — Some of the people in the southern part of the country were called Spar-tans, and they were noted for their simple habits and their brav-er-y.
- [4](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg18442/35/4/) — The name of their land was La-co'ni-a, and so they were sometimes called La-cons.
- [5](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg18442/35/5/) — One of the strange rules which the Spartans had, was that they should speak briefly, and never use more words than were needed.
- [6](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg18442/35/6/) — And so a short answer is often spoken of as being \_la-con-ic\_; that is, as being such an answer as a Lacon would be likely to give.
- [7](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg18442/35/7/) — There was in the northern part of Greece a land called Mac'e-don; and this land was at one time ruled over by a war-like king named Philip.
- [8](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg18442/35/8/) — Philip of Mac-e-don wanted to become the master of all Greece.
- [9](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg18442/35/9/) — So he raised a great army, and made war upon the other states, until nearly all of them were forced to call him their king.
- [10](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg18442/35/10/) — Then he sent a letter to the Spartans in La-co-ni-a, and said, "If I go down into your country, I will level your great city to the ground."
- [11](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg18442/35/11/) — In a few days, an answer was brought back to him.
- [12](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg18442/35/12/) — When he opened the letter, he found only one word written there.
- [13](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg18442/35/13/) — That word was "IF."
- [14](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg18442/35/14/) — It was as much as to say, "We are not afraid of you so long as the little word 'if' stands in your way."

<!-- pn -->
- ← previous: [Damon and Pythias.](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg18442/34/)
- next →: [The Ungrateful Guest.](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg18442/36/)
- ↑ back to [Fifty Famous Stories Retold](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg18442/)