Thy wounds, though great, too feebly hast endured.
The wise poet understood that custom was no contemptible instructor how to bear pain. But the same hero complains with more decency, though in great pain,—
Assist, support me, never leave me so;
Unbind my wounds, oh! execrable woe!
He begins to give way, but instantly checks himself:—
Away, begone, but cover first the sore;
For your rude hands but make my pains the more.
Do you observe how he constrains himself; not that his bodily pains were less, but because he checks the anguish of his mind? Therefore, in the conclusion of the Niptræ, he blames others, even when he himself is dying:—
Complaints of fortune may become the man,
None but a woman will thus weeping stand.