[66]
Do you not see in the case of those whom the poets have handed down to us, as having,
for the sake of avenging their father, inflicted punishment on their mother, especially
when they were said to have done so at the command and in obedience to the oracles of
the immortal gods, how the furies nevertheless haunt them, and never suffer them to
rest, because they could not be pious without wickedness. And this is the truth, O
judges. The blood of one's father and mother has great power, great obligation, is a
most holy thing, and if any stain of that falls on one, it not only cannot be washed
out, but it drips down into the very soul, so that extreme frenzy and madness follow it.
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M. Tullius Cicero. The Orations of Marcus Tullius Cicero, literally translated by C. D. Yonge. London. George Bell & Sons. 1903.
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