And if another of the same kind has perceived it entangled, it drags its hinder parts with its teeth, so that the one which cannot rescue itself when caught may be proved to escape by another's help. Thus too the sauri, a shrewd kind of fish, named from their swiftness, when they have driven themselves into the knotted snares, bound as it were with certain ropes evenly, with all their efforts drawing backward strive to free their captive comrade. There are more such things, if such be sought out. For all things which can have enemies, an easy mishap would consume, did they not have care for their own safety. Let us recall our words to you, master of the bars. Suffer your penal recess to be guiltlessly a secret place. You are tormented indeed, in that no one is afflicted:
you are received in sadness apart from the common joys, while to you alone the general pardon is not spared, to be compared with livid envy. Endure the loss arising from the security of all, you who had gladness from the affliction of many. But that we may console even your groans, claim for yourself only those whom the law of piety releases not by grace, lest, while sparing the savage, it should make light of the most atrocious crimes. Let us therefore all be loosed who are entangled in worldly deeds. Every man endures perilous bonds which he should hasten to escape. Let the prisons dismiss the accused: let the chains of wicked thought set us free.