-same
loins? Our fellow-citizens are nearer to us than foreigners, and our
mess-mates dearer than strangers, and what of those who are sprung from
the same seed, suckled at the same breast, reared in the same home,
loved by the same parents, the same mother, the same father? [15] What
the gods have given to be the seal of brotherhood do not make of none
effect yourselves. But build upon it: make it the foundation for other
loving deeds, and thus the love between you shall never be overcome. The
man who takes thought for his brother cares for his own self. For who
but a brother can win glory from a brother's greatness? Who can be
honoured as a brother can through a brother's power? Or who so safe from
injury as the brother of the great? [16] Let no one, Tanaoxares, be more
eager than yourself to obey your brother and support him: to no one can
his triumph or his danger come so near. Ask yourself from whom you could
win a richer reward for any kindness. Who could give you stouter help
in return for your own support? And where is coldness so ugly as between
brothers? Or where is reverence so beautiful? And remember, Cambyses,
only the brother who holds pre-eminence in a brother's heart can be safe
from the jealousy of the world. [17] I implore you both, my sons, by the
gods of our fathers, hold each other in honour, if you care at all to do
me pleasure: and none of you can say you know that I shall cease to be
when I cease to live this life of ours. With your bodily eyes you have
never seen my soul, and yet you have discerned its presence through its
working. [18] And have you never marked the terrors which the spirits
of those who have suffered wrong can send into the hearts of their
murderers, and the avenging furies they let loose upon the wicked?
Think you the honours of the dead would still abide, if the souls of the
departed were altogether powerless? [19] Never yet, my sons, could I
be persuaded that the soul only lives so long as she dwells within this
mortal body, and falls dead so soon as she is quit of that. Nay, I
see for myself that it is the soul which lends life to it, while she
inhabits there. [20] I cannot believe that she must lose all sense on
her separation from the senseless body, but rather that she will reach
her highest wisdom when she is set free, pure and untrammelled at last.
And when this body crumbles in dissolution, we see the several parts
thereof return to their kindred elements, but we do not