On Funerals (21-24)

Up to that point, the wailing, the same stupid custom prevails everywhere; but in what follows, the burial, they have apportioned out among themselves, nation by nation, the different modes. The Greek burns, the Persian buries, the Indian encases in glass,[*] the Scythian eats, the Egyptian salts. And the latter—I have seen whereof I speak—after drying the dead man makes him his guest at table! Many a time, too, when an Egyptian wants money,

Regarding grave-mounds, pyramids, tombstones, and epitaphs, all of which endure but a brief space, are they not superfluous and akin to child’s play?[*]

Some people, moreover, even hold competitions and deliver funeral orations at the monuments, as if they were pleading or testifying on behalf of the dead man before the judges down below!

As the finishing touch to all this, there is the funeral feast, and the relatives come in, consoling the parents of the departed, and inducing them to taste something. The parents themselves, I must say, do not find it disagreeable to be constrained, but are already done up with three days of continuous fasting. It is: “Man dear, how long are we to lament? Let the spirits[*] of the departed rest! But if you have absolutely decided to keep on weeping, for that very reason you must not abstain from food, in order that you may prove equal to the magnitude of your sorrow.” Then, ah! then, two lines of Homer are recited by everyone:

Verily Niobe also, the fair-tressed, thought of her dinner,

Mourning the dead by fasting is not to be done by Achaeans,[*]