[B] From the Bellerophon of Euripides.
[C] From the Hypsipyle of Euripides. Cicero (Tuscul. iii. 25) has translated six lines from Euripides, and among them are these two lines,—
"Reddenda terrae est terra: tum vita omnibus
Metenda ut fruges: Sic jubet necessitas."
41. If gods care not for me and my children, There is a reason for it.
42. For the good is with me, and the just.[A]
43. No joining others in their wailing, no violent emotion.
[44.] From Plato:[B] But I would make this man a sufficient answer, which is this: Thou sayest not well, if thou thinkest that a man who is good for anything at all ought to compute the hazard of life or death, and should not rather look to this only in all that he does, whether he is doing what is just or unjust, and the works of a good or bad man.
45. [C]For thus it is, men of Athens, in truth: wherever a man has placed himself thinking it the best place for him, or has been placed by a commander, there in my opinion he ought to stay and to abide the hazard, taking nothing into the reckoning, either death or anything else, before the baseness [of deserting his post].
[A] See Aristophanes, Acharnenses, v. 661.
[B] From the Apologia, c. 16.