1
O reasoning of the sons, lord over the passions, and religion more desirable to a mother than progeny!
2
The mother, when two things were set before here, religion and the safety of her seven sons for a time, on the conditional promise of a tyrant,
3
rather elected the religion which according to God preserves to eternal life.
4
O in what way can I describe ethically the affections of parents toward their children, the resemblance of soul and of form engrafted into the small type of a child in a wonderful manner, especially through the greater sympathy of mothers with the feelings of those born of them!
5
for by how much mothers are by nature weak in disposition and prolific in offspring, by so much the fonder they are of children.
6
And of all mothers the mother of the seven was the fondest of children, who in seven childbirths had deeply engendered love toward them;