And, besides, think how absurd it is that this fellow should abuse my father for his failings toward him, when it was thanks to this father’s failings There is a play on the double sense of ἁμαρτάνειν , which is often used as a euphemism for the frailties of love. —Paley. that he became a citizen of your state. I, on my part, have, thanks to the mother of these men, been deprived of two-thirds of my property, but for all that I have too much respect for you to speak disparagingly of her.