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let us restrain ourselves. But if, neglecting the physicians’ examination, we should occupy ourselves with the knife and the scalpel for each of our pains, we would mutilate ourselves in all our limbs without having lived even a short time. 5.7.7 But not so, O men; let there be some memory also of the limbs; let the services of your wives put you to shame. But however much you may be provoked, if you set the pain of a single childbirth against your complaints, you will find the circumstance of your grievances overcome. 5.8.1 Let reflection bring to mind also the good things of her affection: the healing of sicknesses, a partnership in misfortunes, tears shed for her husband by some, leaving her parents and paternal hearth to follow a stranger, selling some of her own possessions to buy her husband off from insult and trouble. 5.8.2 Let all these things guide your disposition and become a bond of affection, like something arousing and holding together a rather unstable house, the easily slipping soul. Let mercy prevail, and let custom and a life lived together for a long time not be trampled underfoot, which makes even the irrational animals inseparable from one another. 5.8.3 For I have seen with feeling an ox lowing when, having wandered from its pasture-mates, it was left alone, and a sheep bleating in a glen and running over the mountains until it joins the flock from which it was separated while grazing. And a goat, having suffered this same thing, even if it comes across many herds of goats as it runs, does not stop until it finds its own accustomed herd and its own goatherd. 5.9.1 Let us not, then, who are rational, be found less feeling towards friendship than the irrational animals, nor let us judge a wife to be of less honor than some traveling companion or someone who has become a friend in a short time for a small reason. You see how men who have met each other on the highway, having come under the same roof of a lodging or a leafy tree that gives shade from the midday sun in the summer season, make their chance meeting an occasion for genuine affection; 5.9.2 and when they come to the dividing road, they do not part from each other without emotion, but they stand and weep a little, looking intently at each other, and each gives tokens of remembrance to carry; and having gone on a little way, they turn back again and call out, and one wishes the other good fortune; and so short a time blends a friendship so keen that their departure becomes difficult to part and forced? 5.9.3 But you, do you hold the partner of your life in such contempt, as a vessel that has fallen away or a cheap garment forgotten on a journey or a little Melitean dog that has strayed from the house? And where is the disposition feigned at the beginning? Where is the repose upon the one bed, the constraint of the law, the power of much and long custom, which reason holds and experience has shown to be transformed even into nature? You have cut everything more easily than Samson the ropes of the foreigners. 5.10.1 And yet the temperate man and guardian of affection does not easily forget his wife even when she has departed from life, but cherishes the children as a common deposit of their mother and of nature, and in them he seems to see the one who has gone. 5.10.2 For one of the children preserves the likeness of the mother's voice, another has drawn much of her character, another's moral disposition was formed after the one who bore him; and so the father, having many living and vivid images of his wife, represents his life with her as immortal, and for this reason thinks of nothing pleasurable; 5.10.3 he does not today heap up the grave and after a short time prepare bridal chambers; nor after the tears and groans does he hasten again to the wedding dance; nor does he exchange the black and mourning garment for a bridal robe; nor does he bring in a second wife to the still warm bed of the departed; nor does he give a stepmother to his children, that burdensome name. 5.10.4 He imitates the irrational and natural fidelity of the turtledoves. For they say that this bird, when separated from its mate, loves perpetual widowhood

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καταστείλωμεν. Εἰ δὲ παρέντες τὴν τῶν ἰατρῶν ἐπίσκεψιν περὶ τὴν τομὴν καὶ τὸν σίδηρον ἀσχοληθείημεν καθ' ἕκαστον τῶν λυπούντων, οὐδὲ μικρὸν τῆς ζωῆς διαγενόμενοι χρόνον πᾶσι τοῖς μέλεσιν ἑαυτοὺς ἀκρωτηριάσωμεν. 5.7.7 Ἀλλ' οὐχ οὕτως, ὦ ἄνδρες· ἔστω τις μνήμη καὶ τῶν κώλων· δυσωπεί τωσαν ὑμᾶς αἱ θεραπεῖαι τῶν γυναικῶν. Ὅσον δ' ἂν παροξυνθῆτε, ἑνὸς τόκου τὴν ὠδῖνα ἀντιθέντες ταῖς μέμψεσιν εὑρήσετε νικωμένην τὴν τῶν λυπούντων περίστασιν. 5.8.1 Ἀναφερέτω ὁ ἀναλογισμὸς εἰς μέσον καὶ τῆς εὐνοίας τὰ ἀγαθά· νόσων θεραπείας, συμφορῶν κοινωνίαν, δάκρυα τὰ ὑπὲρ ἀνδρὸς προσαχθέντα τισίν, τὸ καταλιπεῖν τοὺς γεννησαμένους καὶ ἑστίαν γονικὴν καὶ ἀκολουθῆσαι τῷ ξένῳ, τὸ πωλῆσαί τι τῶν οἰκείων, ἵνα ὕβριν καὶ ὄχλησιν τοῦ ἀνδρὸς ἐξωνήσηται. 5.8.2 Ταῦτα πάντα παιδαγωγείτω πρὸς τὴν διάθεσιν καὶ γινέσθω σύνδεσμος τῆς στοργῆς, οἷον οἰκίαν τινὰ σαθροτέραν τὴν εὐόλισθον ψυχὴν διεγείροντα καὶ συνέχοντα. Ἔλεος δὲ κρατείτω καὶ συνήθεια καὶ μακροῦ χρόνου συμβίωσις μὴ πατείσθω, ἥτις καὶ τὰ ἄλογα ποιεῖ τῶν ζῴων ἀχωρίστως ἔχειν ἀλλήλων. 5.8.3 Ἐμπαθῶς γὰρ εἶδον ἐγὼ βοῦν μυκώμενον, ἐπειδὴ τῶν συννόμων ἀποπλανηθεὶς ἐμονώθη, καὶ πρόβατον ἐν νάπῃ βληχώμενον καὶ διατρέχον τὰ ὄρη, μέχρις ἂν τῇ ἀγέλῃ συνάψῃ, ἧς ἐχωρίσθη νεμόμενον. Αἲξ δὲ ταὐτὸ τοῦτο παθοῦσα, κἂν πολλὰς ἀγέλας αἰγῶν διατρέχουσα καταλάβῃ, οὐ πρότερον ἵσταται, πρὶν ἂν τὴν συνήθη εὕρῃ καὶ τὸν αἰπόλον τὸν ἴδιον. 5.9.1 Μὴ τοίνυν ἀπαθέστεροι πρὸς φιλίαν εὑρεθῶμεν τῶν ἀλόγων οἱ λογικοί, μηδὲ ἀτιμωτέραν τὴν γαμετὴν κρίνωμεν συνοδοιπόρου τινὸς ἢ τοῦ διὰ μικρὰν πρόφασιν ἐν ὀλίγῳ προσφιλιωθέντος. Ὁρᾷς ὡς καὶ ἐπὶ τῆς λεωφόρου ἀλλήλοις συμμίξαντες ἄνθρωποι, ὄροφον δὲ καταγωγίου τὸν αὐτὸν ὑπελθόντες ἢ δένδρον ἀμφιλαφὲς ὥρᾳ θέρους τὴν μεσημβρίαν ἀποσκιάσαν, ἀφορμὴν διαθέσεως γνησίας τὴν συντυχίαν ποιοῦνται· 5.9.2 κἂν ἔλθωσιν ἐπὶ τὴν ὁδὸν τὴν μερίζουσαν, ἀπαθῶς ἀλλήλων οὐκ ἀπαλ λάττονται, ἀλλ' ἵστανται καὶ ὑποδακρύουσιν βλέποντες ἀτενὲς εἰς ἀλλήλους, καὶ σύμβολα μνήμης ἕκαστος δίδωσιν φέρειν· καὶ μικρὸν προβάντες πάλιν μεταστρέφονται καὶ ἀνακαλοῦσιν, ἐπεύχεται δὲ ἕτερος τῷ ἑτέρῳ τὰ αἴσια· καὶ ὀλίγος χρόνος οὕτως ὀξυτάτην κίρνησι τὴν φιλίαν, ὡς δυσαπάλλακτον αὐτοῖς γίνεσθαι καὶ βεβιασμένην τὴν ἀναχώρησιν; 5.9.3 Σὺ δὲ πρὸς τὴν τοῦ βίου κοινωνὸν οὕτως καταφρονητικῶς ἔχεις, ὡς πρὸς σκεῦος ἀποπεσὸν ἢ ἱμάτιον εὐτελὲς ἐν ὁδοιπορίᾳ ληθαργηθὲν ἢ κυνίδιον τῶν Μελιττέων ὑποχωρῆσαν οἰκίας; Καὶ ποῦ ἡ ἐν ἀρχαῖς πεπλασμένη διάθεσις; Ποῦ ἡ ἐπὶ τῆς μιᾶς κοίτης ἀνάπαυσις, ἡ τοῦ νόμου σύνειρξις, ἡ τῆς πολλῆς καὶ μακρᾶς συνηθείας δύναμις, ἣν καὶ εἰς φύσιν μεταποιεῖσθαι καὶ λόγος ἔχει καὶ ἡ πεῖρα ὑπέδειξεν; Πάντα διέκοψας εὐκολώτερον ἢ ὁ Σαμψὼν τὰ τῶν ἀλλοφύλων καλώδια. 5.10.1 Καίτοι ὅγε σώφρων καὶ τῆς διαθέσεως φύλαξ οὐδὲ ἀναχωρησάσης τοῦ βίου τῆς γαμετῆς ῥᾳδίως ἐπιλανθάνεται, ἀλλὰ θάλπει τοὺς παῖδας ὡς κοινὴν παρακαταθήκην τῆς μητέρος καὶ τῆς φύσεως, ἐν ἐκείνοις δὲ καθορᾶν δοκεῖ τὴν ἀπελθοῦσαν. 5.10.2 Ὁ μὲν γὰρ τῶν παίδων τῆς μητρικῆς φωνῆς ὁμοιότητα σώζει, ἄλλος τὸ πολὺ τοῦ χαρακτῆρος ἐφέλκεται, ἕτερος τὴν τοῦ ἤθους κατάστασιν ἐμορφώθη πρὸς τὴν τεκοῦσαν· καὶ οὕτως ὁ πατὴρ πολλὰς ἔχων τῆς γαμετῆς εἰκόνας ζώσας καὶ ἐναργεῖς ἀθάνατον ὑποτυποῦται τὴν πρὸς ἐκείνην συνοίκησιν καὶ διὰ τοῦτο οὐδὲν φιλήδονον ἐννοεῖ· 5.10.3 οὐ σήμερον χώσας τὸν τάφον μετ' ὀλίγον χρόνον παστάδας κατασκευάζει· οὐδὲ μετὰ τὸ δάκρυον καὶ τοὺς στεναγμοὺς ἐπὶ γαμικὴν πάλιν χορείαν ἐπείγεται· οὐδὲ τὴν μέλαιναν ἐσθῆτα καὶ πενθικὴν εἰς νυμφικὴν διαμείβει στολήν· οὐδὲ θερμῇ τῇ κοίτῃ τῆς ἀπελθούσης τὴν δευτέραν γαμετὴν ἐπεισάγει· οὐδὲ μητρυιὰν δίδωσι τοῖς παισί, τὸ ἐπαχθὲς ὄνομα. 5.10.4 Μιμεῖται δὲ τῶν τρυγόνων τὴν ἄλογον καὶ φυσικὴν σεμνότητα. Καὶ γὰρ ἐκείνην τὴν ὄρνιν, φασίν, τῆς ὁμοβίου διαζευχθεῖσαν ἀγαπᾶν διηνεκῆ τὴν χηρείαν