on
by them all they each of them individually received that renown which
never grows old, and for a sepulchre, not so much that in which their
bones have been deposited, but that noblest of shrines wherein their
glory is laid up to be eternally remembered upon every occasion on which
deed or story shall call for its commemoration. For heroes have the
whole earth for their tomb; and in lands far from their own, where the
column with its epitaph declares it, there is enshrined in every breast
a record unwritten with no tablet to preserve it, except that of the
heart. These take as your model and, judging happiness to be the fruit
of freedom and freedom of valour, never decline the dangers of war. For
it is not the miserable that would most justly be unsparing of their
lives; these have nothing to hope for: it is rather they to whom
continued life may bring reverses as yet unknown, and to whom a fall, if
it came, would be most tremendous in its consequences. And surely, to
a man of spirit, the degradation of cowardice must be immeasurably more
grievous than the unfelt death which strikes him in the midst of his
strength and patriotism!

"Comfort, therefore, not condolence, is what I have to offer to the
parents of the dead who may be here. Numberless are the chances to
which, as they know, the life of man is subject; but fortunate indeed
are they who draw for their lot a death so glorious as that which has
caused your mourning, and to whom life has been so exactly measured as
to terminate in the happiness in which it has been passed. Still I know
that this is a hard saying, especially when those are in question of
whom you will constantly be reminded by seeing in the homes of others
blessings of which once you also boasted: for grief is felt not so much
for the want of what we have never known, as for the loss of that to
which we have been long accustomed. Yet you who are still of an age to
beget children must bear up in the hope of having others in their stead;
not only will they help you to forget those whom you have lost, but will
be to the state at once a reinforcement and a security; for never can
a fair or just policy be expected of the citizen who does not, like
his fellows, bring to the decision the interests and apprehensions of a
father. While those of you who have passed your prime must congratulate
yourselves with the thought that the best part of your life was
fortunate, and that the brief span that remains wi