Having collected and put together these extracts, my dearest Apollonius, with
great diligence, I have completed this letter of condolence to you, which is
most needful to enable you to put aside your present grief and to put an end
to mourning, which is the most distressing of all things. In it is included
also for your son, Apollonius, a youth so very dear to the gods, a fitting
tribute, which is much coveted by the sanctified—a tribute due to
his honourable memory and to his fair fame, which will endure for time
eternal. You will do well, therefore, to be persuaded by reason, and, as a
favour to your dear departed son, to turn from your unprofitable distress
and desolation, which affect both body and soul, and to go back to your
accustomed and natural course of life. Forasmuch as your son, while he was
living among us, was sorry to see either you or his mother downcast, even
so, now that he is with the gods and is feasting with them, he would not be
well satisfied with your present course of life. Resume, therefore, the
spirit of a brave-hearted and high-minded man who loves his offspring, and
set free from all this wretchedness both yourself, the mother of the youth,
and your relatives and friends, as you may do by pursuing a more tranquil
form of life, which will be most gratifying both to your son and to all of
us who are concerned for you, as we rightly should be.