4 Maccabees 15:19

¹⁷O thou only woman who hast brought forth perfect holiness!

¹⁸Thy firstborn, expiring, turned thee not; nor the second, looking miserable in his torments; nor the third, breathing out his soul.

— 4 Maccabees 15:19 —

²⁰When thou didst see children’s flesh heaped upon children’s flesh that had been torn off, hands upon hands cut off, heads decapitated upon heads, dead falling upon the dead, and a choir of children turned through torture into a burying ground, thou lamentedst not.

²¹Not so do siren melodies, or songs of swans, attract the hearers to listening, O voices of children calling upon your mother in the midst of torments!