General Defense of the Honorable Women's Craft

dren of Benjamin, or sons of pain, who can wipe away their little tears with greater compassion than she who, herself as a weeping Rachel, bore them in pain? Do you know, as a person born of woman, that you have a short time to live, a life which is full of unrest? Whom do you have to stand by you in your human miseries, in your illnesses, other than that which is a bone of your bones and flesh of your flesh? Which you can call the half-life of your soul. But if you have reached the determined number of your months with which you must take leave of your inconstancy, whom do you have to stand by you faithfully? Where other friends of man usually flee, this is the one who takes upon herself half the agony of death to alleviate it for you, who, embracing you, warms you in your cold sweat and catches the departing soul with her mouth.