dwellings of the dead!"

But the King answered him in great wrath, "I did not bid thee to this
burial, nor shall this dead woman be adorned with gifts of thine. Who
art thou that thou shouldest bewail her? Surely thou art not father of
mine. For being come to extreme old age, yet thou wouldst not die for
thy son, but sufferedst this woman, being a stranger in blood, to die
for me. Her therefore I count father and mother also. Yet this had been
a noble deed for thee, seeing that the span of life that was left to
thee was short. And I too had not been left to live out my days thus
miserably, being bereaved of her whom I loved. Hast thou not had all
happiness, thus having lived in kingly power from youth to age? And thou
wouldst have left a son to come after thee, that thy house should not be
spoiled by thine enemies. Have I not always done due reverence to thee
and to my mother? And, lo! this is the recompense that ye make me.
Wherefore I say to thee, make haste and raise other sons who may nourish
thee in thy old age, and pay thee due honour when thou art dead, for I
will not bury thee. To thee I am dead."

Then the old man spake, "Thinkest thou that thou art driving some Lydian
and Phrygian slave that hath been bought with money, and forgettest that
I am a freeborn man of Thessaly, as my father was freeborn before me? I
reared thee to rule this house after me; but to die for thee, that I
owed thee not. This is no custom among the Greeks that a father should
die for his son. To thyself thou livest or diest. All that was thy due
thou hast received of me; the kingdom over many people, and, in due
time, broad lands which I also received of my father. How have I wronged
thee? Of what have I defrauded thee? I ask thee not to die for me; and I
die not for thee. Thou lovest to behold this light. Thinkest thou that
thy father loveth it not? For the years of the dead are very long; but