"And perhaps," said I, "a wife, safe in some far-away country of the earth, awaits this man, or a son who little dreams of storms or wrecks; or perhaps he left behind a father, whom he kissed good-by at parting! Such is the end of mortal's plans, such is the outcome of great ambitions! See how man rides the waves!" Until now, I had been sorrowing for a mere stranger, but a wave turned the face, which had undergone no change, towards the shore, and I recognized Lycas; so evil-tempered and so unrelenting but a short time before, now cast up almost at my feet! I could no longer restrain the tears, at this; I beat my breast again and yet again, with my hands.

"Where is your evil temper now ?" I cried.
"Where is your unbridled passion?
You be there, a prey to fish and wild beasts, you who boasted but a little while ago of the strength of your command.

Now you have not a single plank left of your great ship! Go on, mortals; set your hearts upon the fulfillment of great ambitions: Go on, schemers, and in your wills control for a thousand years the disposal of the wealth you got by fraud! Only yesterday this man audited the accounts of his family estate, yea, even reckoned the day he would arrive in his native land and settled it in his mind! Gods and goddesses, how far he lies from his appointed destination! But the waves of the sea are not alone in thus keeping faith with mortal men: The warrior's weapons fail him; the citizen is buried beneath the ruins of his own penates, when engaged in paying his vows to the gods; another falls from his chariot and dashes out his ardent spirit; the glutton chokes at dinner; the niggard starves from abstinence.

Give the dice a fair throw and you will find shipwreck everywhere! Ah, but one overwhelmed by the waves obtains no burial! As though it matters in what manner the body, once it is dead, is consumed: by fire, by flood, by time! Do what you will, these all achieve the same end.

Ah, but the beasts will mangle the body! As though fire would deal with it any more gently; when we are angry with our slaves that is the punishment which we consider the most severe.
What folly it is, then, to do everything we can to prevent the grave from leaving any part of us behind {when the Fates will look out for us, even against our wills."} (After these reflections we made ready to pay the last rites to the corpse,) and Lycas was burned upon a funeral pyre raised by the hands of enemies, while Eumolpus, fixing his eyes upon the far distance to gain inspiration, composed an epitaph for the dead man: HIS FATE WAS UNAVOIDABLE NO ROCK-HEWN TOMB NOR SCULPTURED MARBLE HIS, HIS NOBLE CORPSE FIVE FEET OF EARTH RECEIVED, HE RESTS IN PEACE BENEATH THIS HUMBLE MOUND..