20
When you saw the flesh of children burned upon the flesh of other children, severed hands upon hands, scalped heads upon heads, and corpses fallen on other corpses, and when you saw the place filled with many spectators of the torturings, you did not shed tears.
21
Neither the melodies of sirens nor the songs of swans attract the attention of their hearers as did the voices of the children in torture calling to their mother.
22
How great and how many torments the mother then suffered as her sons were tortured on the wheel and with the hot irons!
23
But devout reason, giving her heart a man's courage in the very midst of her emotions, strengthened her to disregard, for the time, her parental love.
24
Although she witnessed the destruction of seven children and the ingenious and various rackings, this noble mother disregarded all these because of faith in God.
25
For as in the council chamber of her own soul she saw mighty advocates—nature, family, parental love, and the rackings of her children—
26
this mother held two ballots, one bearing death and the other deliverance for her children.
27
She did not approve the deliverance that would preserve the seven sons for a short time,
28
but as the daughter of God-fearing Abraham she remembered his fortitude.
29
O mother of the nation, vindicator of the law and champion of religion, who carried away the prize of the contest in your heart!
30
O more noble than males in steadfastness, and more courageous than men in endurance!