Accordingly, since it is within your powers, since
my father controls only the charge, and you who sit
in judgement control the decision whether his accusation is reasonable, do not yet consider his specific
allegation against me and the ground of his present
indignation, but first examine that other point,
whether he should still be allowed to disown a son
when, after once for all disowning him, using the
privilege that derives from the law and exercising to
the full this paternal suzerainty, he has subsequently


 

taken him back again and annulled the disownment.
I say that such a thing is most unjust—for punishments, precisely in the case of children, to be interminable, their condemnations numerous, and their
fear eternal; for the law at one moment to share
the prosecutor’s anger, only soon afterward to relax,
and then again to be as severe as before; in a word,
for justice to be altered this way and that to conform
to the momentary opinion of fathers. No, the first
time it is right to give the parent free rein, to share
his anger with him, to make him arbiter of the
punishment; but if, once for all, he expends his
privilege, makes full use of the law, satisfies his anger,
and then afterwards takes back his son, persuaded
that he deserves it, he must abide by it, and not keep
shifting, changing his mind, and altering his decision.
 
When that son was born there was no way, of
course, to ascertain whether he would turn out to be
bad or good, and on that account the privilege of
repudiating children who are unworthy of their
family has been allowed to their parents, since they
determined to bring them up at a time when they
were unaware ofthis.
 
When, however, under no constraint but able to do as he pleases, a man himself,
of his own motion and after putting his son to
the test, takes him back, what pretext for change of
mind remains, or what further recourse to the law?
The legislator would say to you: “If he was bad and
deserved to be disowned, what made you ask him
back? Why did you readmit him to your house?
Why did you nullify the law? You were free and
at liberty not to do this. Surely it cannot be conceded that you should make sport of the laws and that


 

the courts should be convened to suit your changes
of mind, that the laws should be relaxed one moment
and enforced the next and the jurors sit to register,
or rather to execute, your decisions, inflicting a
penalty at one time, bringing you together at another,
as often as it shall please you. You begat him
once for all, you brought him up once for all, and
have once for all, in return for this, the power to
disown him, and then only if you are held to be
doing it justly. This persistence, this interminability, this prodigious casualness is beyond the legal
right of a father.”
 
In Heaven’s name, gentlemen of the jury, do not
permit him, once he has effected the reinstatement
of his own free will, set aside the decision of the
former court, and nullified his anger, to reinvoke the
same penalty and to recur to the right of a father
when its term by now is over and done with, inoperative in his case alone because it is already used
up. You perceive, surely, that in all courts where
jurors are drawn by lot, if a man thinks that the
verdict is unjust, the law allows him to appeal from
them to another tribunal; but if people have themselves of their own accord agreed upon jurors and
willingly committed the arbitrament to them, that is
not then the case. For there was no need to consult
them at all; but if a man has selected them of his own
choice, he ought to remain content with their decision.
So it is with you: a son who seemed to you unworthy
of his lineage need never have been taken back, but
one whom you have pronounced good and taken


 

back again you will not thereafter be able to disown ;
for you yourself have borne witness that he does not
deserve to undergo this again, and have acknowledged
that he is good. It is fitting, therefore, that his
reinstatement should be irrevocable and the reconciliation binding after deliberation so oft-repeated,
and two sessions of court, one (the first) in which
you repudiated him, the other (your own) when you
changed your mind and undid it. By setting aside
the earlier decision you have guaranteed your later
determination. Abide, then, by your latest purpose
and maintain your own verdict; you must be a
father, for that is what you decided, what you
approved, what you ratified.