2
O reason, more royal than kings and freer than the free!
3
O sacred and harmonious concord of the seven brothers on behalf of religion!
4
None of the seven youths proved coward or shrank from death,
5
but all of them, as though running the course toward immortality, hastened to death by torture.
6
Just as the hands and feet are moved in harmony with the guidance of the mind, so those holy youths, as though moved by an immortal spirit of devotion, agreed to go to death for its sake.
7
O most holy seven, brothers in harmony! For just as the seven days of creation move in choral dance around religion,
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so these youths, forming a chorus, encircled the sevenfold fear of tortures and dissolved it.
9
Even now, we ourselves shudder as we hear of the suffering of these young men; they not only saw what was happening, not only heard the direct word of threat, but also bore the sufferings patiently, and in agonies of fire at that.
10
What could be more excruciatingly painful than this? For the power of fire is intense and swift, and it consumed their bodies quickly.
11
Do not consider it amazing that reason had full command over these men in their tortures, since the mind of woman despised even more diverse agonies,
12
for the mother of the seven young men bore up under the rackings of each one of her children.