4
But the mother quenched so many and such great emotions by devout reason.
5
Consider this also. If this woman, though a mother, had been fainthearted, she would have mourned over them and perhaps spoken as follows:
6
"O how wretched am I and many times unhappy! After bearing seven children, I am now the mother of none!
7
O seven childbirths all in vain, seven profitless pregnancies, fruitless nurturings and wretched nursings!
8
In vain, my sons, I endured many birth-pangs for you, and the more grievous anxieties of your upbringing.
9
Alas for my children, some unmarried, others married and without offspring. I shall not see your children or have the happiness of being called grandmother.
10
Alas, I who had so many and beautiful children am a widow and alone, with many sorrows.
11
Nor when I die, shall I have any of my sons to bury me."
12
Yet the sacred and God-fearing mother did not wail with such a lament for any of them, nor did she dissuade any of them from dying, nor did she grieve as they were dying,
13
but, as though having a mind like adamant and giving rebirth for immortality to the whole number of her sons, she implored them and urged them on to death for the sake of religion.
14
O mother, soldier of God in the cause of religion, elder and woman! By steadfastness you have conquered even a tyrant, and in word and deed you have proved more powerful than a man.