History of the Peloponnesian War

"Wherefore to the parents of the dead—as many of them as are here among you—I will not offer condolence, so much as consolation. For they know that they have been brought up subject to manifold misfortunes; but that happy is their lot who have gained the most glorious—death, as these have, —sorrow, as you have; and to whom life has been so exactly measured, that they were both happy in it, and died in [that happiness].

Difficult, indeed, I know it is to persuade you of this, with regard to those of whom you will often be reminded by the good fortune of others, in which you yourselves also once rejoiced; and sorrow is felt, not for the blessings of which one is bereft without full experience of them, but of that which one loses after becoming accustomed to it.

But you must bear up in the hope of other children, those of you whose age yet allows you to have them. For to yourselves individually those who are subsequently born will be a reason for your forgetting those who are no more; and to the state it will be beneficial in two ways, by its not being depopulated, and by the enjoyment of security; for it is not possible that those should offer any fair and just advice, who do not incur equal risk with their neighbours by having children at stake.

Those of you, however, who are past that age, must consider that the longer period of your life during which you have been prosperous is so much gain, and that what remains will be but a short one; and you must cheer yourselves with the fair fame of these [your lost ones]. For the love of honour is the only feeling that never grows old; and in the helplessness of age it is not the acquisition of gain, as some assert, that gives greatest pleasure, but the enjoyment of honour.

"For those of you, on the other hand, who are sons or brothers of the dead, great, I see, will be the struggle of competition. For every one is accustomed to praise the man who is no more; and scarcely, though even for an excess of worth, would you be esteemed, I do not say equal to them, but only slightly inferior. [*]( Or, as Göller explains it, the living feel envy towards their rivals. τὸ ἀντίπαλον intelligendos esse aemulos, non aemulationem, ea quoque indicant que contrariè ponuntur: τὸ μὴ ἐμποδών i. e. ii, qui non impedimento, nonaemuli sunt (utpote mortui). —But is not the opposition really between τοῖς ζῶσι and τὸ μὴ ἐμποδών like the sentiment of Horace, Urit cuim fulgore suo, qui praegravat artesInfra se positas: extinctus amabitur idem.) For the living are exposed to envy in their rivalry; but those who are in no one's way are honoured with a good will free from all opposition.

If; again, I must say any thing on the subject of woman's excellence also, with reference to those of you who will now be in widowhood, I will express it all in a brief exhortation. Great will be your glory in not tailing short of the natural character that belongs to you; and great is hers, who is least talked of amongst the men, either for good or evil.