Today | News | Books | Recipes Adventure | Science Fiction | Ghost stories | Poetry | Children | History Bookhis incestuous love--Agrippa to his own sister! where barefoot kings observe festal sabbaths, and a long-established clemency grants long life to pigs. "Is there not one, then, out of such large herds of women, that seems to you a worthy match?" Let her be beautiful, graceful, rich, fruitful; marshal along her porticoes her rows of ancestral statues; let her be more chaste than any single Sabine that, with hair disheveled, brought the war to a close; be a very phœnix upon earth, rare as a black swan; who could tolerate a wife in whom all excellencies are concentrated! I would rather, far rather, have a country maiden from Venusia, than you, O Cornelia, mother of the Gracchi, if along with your exalted virtues you bring as portion of your dower a haughty and disdainful brow, and reckon as part of your fortune the triumphs of your house! Away, I beg, with your Hannibal and Syphax conquered in his camp, and tramp with all your Carthage! "Spare, I pray thee, Pæan! and thou, O goddess, lay down thine arrows! The children are innocent. Transfix the mother herself!" So prays Amphion. Yet Pæan bends his bow. Therefore she had to bury her herds of children, together with their sire, while Niobe seems to herself to be more noble than Latona's race, and moreover more fruitful even than the white sow. What dignity of deportment, what beauty, can compensate for your wife's always throwing her own worth in your teeth? For all the satisfaction of this rare and chief good is destroyed, if, entirely spoilt by haughtiness of soul, it entails more bitter than sweet. But who is so devotedly uxorious, as not to feel a dread of her whom he praises to the skies, and hate her seven hours out of every twelve? There are some things, trifling indeed, and yet such as no husband can tolerate. For what can be more sickening than the fact that no one woman considers herself beautiful, unless instead of Tuscan she has become a little Greek--metamorphosed from a maid of Sulmo to a "maid of Athens." Every thing is in Greek. (While surely it is more disgraceful for our countrywomen not to know their mother tongue.) In this language they give vent to their fears, their anger, their joys and cares, and all the inmost workings of their soul. Nay more, they kiss à la Grecque! This in young girls you may excuse. But must thou, forsooth, speak Greek, that hast had the wear and tear of six and eighty years? In an old woman this language becomes immodest, when interspersed with the wanton Ζωὴ καὶ ψυχή. You are employing in public, expressions one might think you had just used under the counterpane. For whose passion would not be excited by these enticing and wanton words? It has all the force of actual touching. Yet though you pronounce them all in more insinuating tones than even Hæmus or Carpophorus, your face, the tell-tale of your years, makes all the feathers droop. If you are _not_ likely to love her that is contracted and united to you in lawful wedlock, there seems no single reason why you should marry, nor why you should waste the wedding dinner and bride cakes[247] which you must dispense, when their complimentary attendance is over, to your bridal guests already well crammed; nor the present given for the first nuptial night, when, in the well-stored dish, Dacicus[248] and Germanicus glitters with its golden legend. If you are possessed of such simplicity of character as to be enamored of your wife, and your whole soul is devoted to her alone, then bow your head with neck prepared to bear the yoke. You will find none that will spare a man that loves her. Though she be enamored herself, she delights in tormenting and fleecing her lover. Consequently a wife is far more disastrous to him that is likely to prove a kind and eligible husband. You will never be allowed to make a present without your wife's consent. If she opposes it, you must not sell a single thing, or buy one, against her will. She will give away your affections. That good old friend of many long years will be shut out from that gate that saw his first sprouting beard.[249] While pimps and trainers have free liberty to make their own wills, and even gladiators enjoy the same amount of privilege, you will have your will dictated to you, and find more than one rival named as your heirs. "Crucify that slave." "What is the charge, to call for such a punishment? What witness can you produce? Who gave the information? Listen! Where man's life is at stake no deliberation can be too long." "Idiot! so a slave is a man then! Granted he has done nothing. I _will_ it, I _insist_ on it! Let my will stand instead of reason!" Therefore she lords it over her husband:--but soon she quits these realms, and seeks new empires and wears out her bridal veil. Then she flies back, and seeks again the traces of the bed she scorned.[250] She leaves the doors so recently adorned, the tapestry still hanging on the house, and the branches still green upon the threshold. Thus the number grows: thus she has her eight[251] husbands in five years. A notable fact to record upon her tomb! All chance of domestic happiness is hopeless while your wife's mother is alive. She bids her exult in despoiling her husband to the utmost. She teaches her how to write back nothing savoring of discourtesy or inexperience to the missives of the seducer. She either balks or bribes your spies; then, though your daughter is in rude health, calls in Archigenes, and tosses off the bedclothes as too oppressive. Meanwhile the adulterer, concealed apart, stands trembling with impatient expectation. Do you expect, forsooth, that the mother will inculcate virtuous principles, or other than she cherishes herself? It is right profitable too for a depraved old hag to train her daughter to the same depravity. There is scarcely a single cause in which a woman is not engaged in some way in fomenting the suit. If Manilia is not defendant, she will be plaintiff. They draw up and frame bills of indictment unassisted,[252] quite prepared to dictate even to Celsus[253] the exordium and topics he should use. The Tyrian Endromides[254] and the Ceroma for women who is ignorant of? Or who has not seen the wounds of the Plastron,[255] which she dints with unwearied foil, and attacks with her shield, and goes with precision through her exercise? A matron most pre-eminently worthy of the trumpet of the Floralia. Unless indeed in that breast of hers she is plotting something deeper, and training in real earnest for the amphitheatre.[256] What modesty can a woman show that wears a helmet, and eschews her sex, and delights in feats of strength? And yet, in spite of all, this virago would not wish to become a man. For how small is our pleasure compared to theirs! Yet what a goodly array would there be, if there were an auction of your wife's goods: belt and gauntlets[257] and crest, and the half-armor for the left leg! Or if she shall engage in a different way of fighting,[258] you will be luc |