71
Hence it is meet that the living should yearn for these men, and bewail themselves, and pity their kindred for the life that lies before them. For what pleasure now remains for them, when such men as these are buried? These, prizing valor above all else, deprived themselves of life, widowed their wives, left their own children orphans, and brothers, fathers, mothers in a state of desolation.
72
Though their children have many troubles in store for them, I envy them because they are too young to know of what noble fathers they have been bereft: but I pity those whose sons they were, as being too old to forget their own misfortune.
73
For what woe could be more incurable than to bring forth and rear and bury one’s own children, and then in old age to be disabled in body and, having lost every hope, to find oneself friendless and resourceless? to have the very cause of former envy turned now to a matter of pity, and to regard death as more desirable than life? For the more they excelled in manhood, the greater the grief to those who are left behind.
