1 If, then, even a woman, and that an
aged one, and the mother of seven children,
endured to see her children’s torments even
to death, it must be admitted that religious
reasoning is master even of the emotions.

2 I have proved, then, that not only men
have obtained the mastery of their emotions,
but also that a woman despised the
greatest torments.

3 The lions around Daniel were not so
fierce, nor the furnace of Misael burning
with most vehement fires as that natural
love of children burned within her, when
she saw her seven sons tortured.

4 But with the reasoning of religion the
mother quenched emotions so great and
powerful.

5 For we must consider also this: that,
had the woman been faint hearted, as
being their mother, she would have
lamented over them, and perhaps might
have spoken thus:

6 “Ah! I am wretched and many times
miserable, who having born seven sons,
have become the mother of none.

7 O seven useless childbirths, and seven
profitless periods of labor, and fruitless
givings of suck, and miserable nursings at
the breast.

8 Vainly,for your sakes, O sons, have
I endured many pangs, and the more difficult
anxieties of rearing.

9 Alas, of my children, some of you unmarried,
and some who have married to
no profit, I will not see your children, nor
have the joy of being a grandmother.

10 Ah, that I who had many and fair
children, should be a lone widow full of
sorrows!

11 Nor, should I die, will I have a son to
bury me.” But with such a lament as this,
the holy and God-fearing mother wept for
none of them.

12 Nor did she divert any of them from
death, nor grieve for them as for the dead.

13 But as one possessed with an adamant
mind, and as one bringing forth again her
full number of sons to immortality, she
rather urged them to death on behalf of
religion.