12
Even if I were not your own son, but adopted, and you wished to disown me, I should not think you could; for what it was possible not to do at all, it is unjust to undo once it has taken place. But when a son has been got by birth, and then again by choice and decision, how is it reasonable to put him away again and deprive him repeatedly of that single relationship? If I happened to be a slave, and at first, thinking me vicious, you had put me in irons, but on becoming convinced that I was not a wrongdoer you had let me go and set me free, would it be in your power, if you became angry on occasion, to bring me back into the same condition of slavery? By no means, for the laws require that such pacts should be permanent and under all circumstances valid.
12
Upon the point that it is no longer in his power to disown one whom he has once disowned and then of his own accord taken back I still have much to say; nevertheless, I shall make an end.
13
But consider what manner of man he will now be disowning. I do not mean that then I was but a layman, whereas now I am a physician, for my profession would avail me nothing in this respect. Nor that then I was young, whereas now I am well on in years and derive from my age the right to have it believed that I would do no wrong; for that too is perhaps trivial. But at that time, even if he had suffered no wrong, as I should maintain, yet he had received no benefit from me when he excluded me from the house; whereas now I have recently been his saviour and benefactor. What could be more ungrateful than that, after he had been saved through me and had escaped so great a danger, he should at once make return in this way, taking no account of that cure; nay, should so easily forget and try to drive into loneliness a man who, when he might justly have exulted over those who had unjustly cast him out, not only had borne him no grudge but actually had saved his life and made him sound of mind?
