And the Platonicks rejected not a due care of
the grave, though they put their ashes to unreasonable
expectations, in their tedious term of return and long
set revolution.
Men have lost their reason in nothing so much as
their religion, wherein stones and clouts make martyrs;
and, since the religion of one seems madness unto
another, to afford an account or rational of old rites
requires no rigid reader. That they kindled the pyre
aversely, or turning their face from it, was an handsome
symbol of unwilling ministration. That they washed
their bones with wine and milk; that the mother
wrapped them in linen, and dried them in her bosom,
the first fostering part and place of their nourishment;
that they opened their eyes toward heaven before they
kindled the fire, as the place of their hopes or original,
were no improper ceremonies. Their last valediction,*
thrice uttered by the attendants, was also very solemn,
and somewhat answered by Christians, who thought it
too little, if they threw not the earth thrice upon the
interred body.
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