have one word to offer in reply; or, if thou canst find any
justification of thy complainings, thou must show what it is. I will
give thee space to speak.'

Then said I: 'Verily, thy pleas are plausible--yea, steeped in the
honeyed sweetness of music and rhetoric. But their charm lasts only
while they are sounding in the ear; the sense of his misfortunes lies
deeper in the heart of the wretched. So, when the sound ceases to
vibrate upon the air, the heart's indwelling sorrow is felt with renewed
bitterness.'

Then said she: 'It is indeed as thou sayest, for we have not yet come to
the curing of thy sickness; as yet these are but lenitives conducing to
the treatment of a malady hitherto obstinate. The remedies which go deep
I will apply in due season. Nevertheless, to deprecate thy
determination to be thought wretched, I ask thee, Hast thou forgotten
the extent and bounds of thy felicity? I say nothing of how, when
orphaned and desolate, thou wast taken into the care of illustrious men;
how thou wast chosen for alliance with the highest in the state--and
even before thou wert bound to their house by marriage, wert already
dear to their love--which is the most precious of all ties. Did not all
pronounce thee most happy in the virtues of thy wife, the splendid
honours of her father, and the blessing of male issue? I pass over--for
I care not to speak of blessings in which others also have shared--the
distinctions often denied to age which thou enjoyedst in thy youth. I
choose rather to come to the unparalleled culmination of thy good
fortune. If the fruition of any earthly success has weight in the scale
of happiness, can the memory of that splendour be swept away by any
rising flood of troubles? That day when thou didst see thy two sons ride
forth from home joint consuls, followed by a train of senators, and