M. CORNELIUS FRONTO
from heaven, to rne indeed, for whom death is so near, they can by no means bring any lasting perplexity. Whether we are annihilated for ever, as . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . I once desired, at last I was unable for grief and tears. Now it is even my darling grandson, whom I am bringing up myself in my own bosom, it is he, indeed, who more and more rends and racks my heart. For in his lineaments I behold the other whom I have lost, I seem to see a copy of his face and fancy that I hear the very echo of his voice. This is the picture that my grief conjures up of itself. But not knowing the dead child's face I fret myself away with imagining what he was like.
7. My daughter will be reasonable, she will rest upon her husband's love, and he is the best of men. He will comfort her by mingling his tears and sighs with hers, by speaking when she speaks and being silent when she is silent. It will scarce befit me, her aged father, to comfort her; for it were more fitting had I myself been the first to die. Nor would any poet's songs or philosopher's precepts avail so much to assuage my daughter's grief and soothe her pain as her husband's voice issuing from lips so dear and a heart so near her own.
8. My comfort, however, I find in my life being almost spent and death very near. When it comes, be its advent by night or by day, yet will I hail the heavens as I depart and wiat my conscience tells me I will testify,[1] that in my long span of life I have been guilty of nothing dishonourable, shameful, or
- ↑ Charisius, in his Ars Grammatica, quotes from Fronto's second book of letters to Antoninus: Male me, Marce, praeteritae vitae meae paenitet.
