Have pity, then, on this child, the victim of calamity, though guilty of no error: and have pity on me, an old man in distress, stricken thus suddenly with sorrow. Do not bring a miserable fate upon us by condemning us: but show that you fear God by acquitting us. The dead boy is not unavenged for the calamity which befell him: nor ought we ourselves to share the responsibility for errors due to our accusers.

So respect the righteousness which the facts before you have revealed: respect justice: and acquit us as godly and just men should. Do not bring upon a father and a son, two of the most wretched of beings, sorrows which the years of neither can well bear.