15
But as to the old man who mourns after this fashion, it is not, in all probability, on account of his son that he does all this melodramatic ranting that I have mentioned, and more than I have mentioned; for he knows that his son will not hear him even if he shouts louder than Stentor. Nor yet is it on his own account; for it would have been enough to think this and have it in mind, without his shouting—nobody needs to shout at himself. Consequently it is on account of the others present that he talks this nonsense, when he does not know what has happened to his son nor where he has gone; in fact he has not even considered what life itself is, or else he would not take on so about the leaving of it, as if that were something dreadful.
