solicitous fear and care he had of his adopted son; [5988]not of
beauty, but lest they should miscarry, do amiss, or any way discredit,
disgrace (as Vives notes) or endanger themselves and us. [5989]Aegeus
was so solicitous for his son Theseus, (when he went to fight with the
Minotaur) of his success, lest he should be foiled, [5990]Prona est
timori semper in pejus fides. We are still apt to suspect the worst in
such doubtful cases, as many wives in their husband's absence, fond
mothers in their children's, lest if absent they should be misled or
sick, and are continually expecting news from them, how they do fare,
and what is become of them, they cannot endure to have them long out of
their sight: oh my sweet son, O my dear child, &c. Paul was jealous
over the Church of Corinth, as he confesseth, 2 Cor. xi. 12. With a
godly jealousy, to present them a pure virgin to Christ; and he was
afraid still, lest as the serpent beguiled Eve, through his subtlety,
so their minds should be corrupt from the simplicity that is in Christ.
God himself, in some sense, is said to be jealous, [5991]I am a jealous
God, and will visit: so Psalm lxxix. 5. Shall thy jealousy burn like
fire for ever? But these are improperly called jealousies, and by a
metaphor, to show the care and solicitude they have of them. Although
some jealousies express all the symptoms of this which we treat of,
fear, sorrow, anguish, anxiety, suspicion, hatred, &c., the object only
varied. That of some fathers is very eminent, to their sons and heirs;
for though they love them dearly being children, yet now coming towards
man's estate they may not well abide them, the son and heir is commonly
sick of the father, and the father again may not well brook his eldest
son, inde simultates, plerumque contentiones et inimicitiae; but that
of princes is most notorious, as when they fear co-rivals (if I may so
call them) successors, emulators, subjects, or such as they have
offended. [5992] Omnisque potestas impatiens consortis erit: they are
still suspicious, lest their authority should be diminished, [5993]as
one observes; and as Comineus hath it, [5994]it cannot be expressed
what slender causes they have of their grief and suspicion, a secret
disease, that commonly lurks and breeds in princes' families. Sometimes
it is for their honour only, as that of Adrian the emperor, [5995]that
killed all his emulators. Saul envied David; Domitian Agricola, because
he did excel him, obscure his honour, as he thought, eclipse his fame.
Juno turned Praetus' daughters into kine, for that they contended with
her for beauty; [5996]Cyparissae, king Eteocles' children, were envied
of the goddesses for their excellent good parts, and dancing amongst
the rest, saith [5997]Constantine, and for that cause flung headlong
from heaven, and buried in a pit, but the earth took pity of them, and
brought out cypress trees to preserve their memories. [5998]Niobe,
Arachne, and Marsyas, can testify as much. But it is most grievous when
it is for a kingdom itself, or matters of commodity, it produceth
lamentable effects, especially amongst tyrants, in despotico Imperio,
and such as are more feared than beloved of their subjects, that get
and keep their sovereignty by force and fear. [5999]Quod civibus tenere
te invitis scias, &c., as Phalaris, Dionysius, Periander held theirs.
For though fear, cowardice, and jealousy, in Plutarch's opinion, be the
common causes of tyranny, as in Nero, Caligula, Tiberius, yet most take
them to be symptoms. For [6000]what slave, what hangman (as Bodine well
expresseth this passion, l. 2. c. 5. de rep.) can so cruelly torture a
condemned person, as this fear and suspicion? Fear of death, infamy,
torments, are those furies and vultures that vex and disquiet tyrants,
and torture them day and night, with perpetual terrors and affrights,
envy, suspicion, fear, desire of revenge, and a thousand such
disagreeing perturbations, turn and affright the soul out of the hinges
of health, and more grievously wound and pierce, than those cruel
masters can exasperate and vex their apprentices or servants, with
clubs, whips, chains, and tortures. Many terrible examples we have in
this kind, amongst the Turks especially, many jealous outrages;
[6001]Selimus killed Kornutus his youngest brother, five of his
nephews, Mustapha Bassa, and divers others. [6002]Bajazet the second
Turk, jealous of the valour and greatness of Achmet Bassa, caused him
to be slain. [6003]Suleiman the Magnificent murdered his own son
Mustapha; and 'tis an ordinary thing amongst them, to make away their
brothers, or any competitors, at the first coming to the crown: 'tis
all the solemnity they use at their fathers' funerals. What mad pranks
in his jealous fury did Herod of old commit in Jewry, when he massacred
all the children of a year old? [6004]Valens the emperor in
Constantinople, when as he left no man alive of quality in his kingdom
that had his name begun with Theo; Theodoti, Theognosti, Theodosii,
Theoduli, &c. They went all to their long home, because a wizard told
him that name should succeed in his empire. And what furious designs
hath [6005]Jo. Basilius, that Muscovian tyrant, practised of late? It
is a wonder to read that strange suspicion, which Suetonius reports of
Claudius Caesar, and of Domitian, they were afraid of every man they
saw: and which Herodian of Antoninus and Geta, those two jealous
brothers, the one could not endure so much as the other's servants, but
made away him, his chiefest followers, and all that belonged to him, or
were his well-wishers. [6006]Maximinus perceiving himself to be odious
to most men, because he was come to that height of honour out of base
beginnings, and suspecting his mean parentage would be objected to him,
caused all the senators that were nobly descended, to be slain in a
jealous humour, turned all the servants of Alexander his predecessor
out of doors, and slew many of them, because they lamented their
master's death, suspecting them to be traitors, for the love they bare
to him. When Alexander in his fury had made Clitus his dear friend to
be put to death, and saw now (saith [6007]Curtius) an alienation in his
subjects' hearts, none durst talk with him, he began to be jealous of
himself, lest they should attempt as much on him, and said they lived
like so many wild beasts in a wilderness, one afraid of another. Our
modern stories afford us many notable examples. [6008]Henry the Third
of France, jealous of Henry of Lorraine, Duke of Guise, _anno_ 1588,
caused him to be murdered in his own chamber. [6009]Louis the Eleventh
was so suspicious, he durst not trust his children, every man about him
he suspected for a traitor; many strange tricks Comineus telleth of
him. How jealous was our Henry the [6010]Fourth of King Richard the
Second, so long as he lived, after he was deposed? and of his own son
Henry in his latter days? which the prince well perceiving, came to
visit his father in his sickness, in a watchet velvet gown, full of
eyelet holes, and with needles sticking in them (as an emblem of
jealousy), and so pacified his suspicious father, after some speeches
and protestations, which he had used to that purpose. Perpetual
imprisonment, as that of Robert [6011]Duke of Normandy, in the days of
Henry the First, forbidding of marriage to some persons, with such like
edicts and prohibitions, are ordinary in all states. In a word
([6012]as he said) three things cause jealousy, a mighty state, a rich
treasure, a fair wife; or where there is a cracked title, much tyranny,
and exactions. In our state, as being freed from all these fears and
miseries, we may be most secure and happy under the reign of our
fortunate prince:
[6013]His fortune hath indebted him to none
But to all his people universally;
And not to them but for their love alone,
Which they account as placed worthily.
He is so set, he hath no cause to be
Jealous, or dreadful of disloyalty;
The pedestal whereon his greatness stands.
Is held of all our hearts, and all our hands.
But I rove, I confess. These equivocations, jealousies, and many such,
which crucify the souls of men, are not here properly meant, or in this
distinction of ours included, but that alone which is for beauty,
tending to love, and wherein they can brook no co-rival, or endure any
participation: and this jealousy belongs as well to brute beasts, as
men. Some creatures, saith [6014]Vives, swans, doves, cocks, bulls,
&c., are jealous as well as men, and as much moved, for fear of
communion.
[6015]Grege pro toto bella juvenci,
Si con jugio timuere suo,
Poscunt timidi praelia cervi,
Et mugitus dant concepti signa furoris.
In Venus' cause what mighty battles make
Your raving bulls, and stirs for their herd's sake:
And harts and bucks that are so timorous,
Will fight and roar, if once they be but jealous.
In bulls, horses, goats, this is most apparently discerned. Bulls
especially, alium in pascuis non admittit, he will not admit another
bull to feed in the same pasture, saith [6016]Oppin: which Stephanus
Bathorius, late king of Poland, used as an impress, with that motto,
Regnum non capit duos. R. T. in his Blazon of Jealousy, telleth a story
of a swan about Windsor, that finding a strange cock with his mate, did
swim I know not how many miles after to kill him, and when he had so
done, came back and killed his hen; a certain truth, he saith, done
upon Thames, as many watermen, and neighbour gentlemen, can tell. Fidem
suam liberet; for my part, I do believe it may be true; for swans have
ever been branded with that epithet of jealousy.
[6017]The jealous swanne against his death that singeth,
And eke the owle that of death bode bringeth.
[6018]Some say as much of elephants, that they are more jealous than
any other creatures whatsoever; and those old Egyptians, as
[6019]Pierius informeth us, express in their hieroglyphics, the passion
of jealousy by a camel; [6020]because that fearing the worst still
about matters of venery, he loves solitudes, that he may enjoy his
pleasure alone, et in quoscunque obvios insurgit, Zelolypiae stimulis
agitatus, he will quarrel and fight with whatsoever comes next, man or
beast, in his jealous fits. I have read as much of [6021]crocodiles;
and if Peter Martyr's authority be authentic, legat. Babylonicae lib.
3. you shall have a strange tale to that purpose confidently related.
Another story of the jealousy of dogs, see in Hieron. Fabricius, Tract.
3. cap. 5. de loquela animalium.
But this furious passion is most eminent in men, and is as well amongst
bachelors as married men. If it appear amongst bachelors, we commonly
call them rivals or co-rivals, a metaphor derived from a river,
rivales, a [6022]rivo; for as a river, saith Acron in Hor. Art. Poet.
and Donat in Ter. Eunuch. divides a common ground between two men, and
both participate of it, so is a woman indifferent between two suitors,
both likely to enjoy her; and thence comes this emulation, which breaks
out many times into tempestuous storms, and produceth lamentable
effects, murder itself, with much cruelty, many single combats. They
cannot endure the least injury done unto them before their mistress,
and in her defence will bite off one another's noses; they are most
impatient of any flout, disgrace, lest emulation or participation in
that kind. [6023]Lacerat lacerium Largi mordax Memnius. Memnius the
Roman (as Tully tells the story, de oratore, lib. 2.), being co-rival
with Largus Terracina, bit him by the arm, which fact of his was so
famous, that it afterwards grew to a proverb in those parts.
[6024]Phaedria could not abide his co-rival Thraso; for when Parmeno
demanded, numquid aliud imperas? whether he would command him any more
service: No more (saith he) but to speak in his behalf, and to drive
away his co-rival if he could. Constantine, in the eleventh book of his
husbandry, cap. 11, hath a pleasant tale of the pine-tree; [6025]she
was once a fair maid, whom Pineus and Boreas, two co-rivals, dearly
sought; but jealous Boreas broke her neck, &c. And in his eighteenth
chapter he telleth another tale of [6026]Mars, that in his jealousy
slew Adonis. Petronius calleth this passion amantium furiosum
aemulationem, a furious emulation; and their symptoms are well
expressed by Sir Geoffrey Chaucer in his first Canterbury Tale. It will
make the nearest and dearest friends fall out; they will endure all
other things to be common, goods, lands, moneys, participate of each
pleasure, and take in good part any disgraces, injuries in another
kind; but as Propertius well describes it in an elegy of his, in this
they will suffer nothing, have no co-rivals.
[6027]Tu mihi vel ferro pectus, vel perde veneno,
A domina tantum te modo tolle mea:
Te socium vitae te corporis esse licebit,
Te dominum admitto rebus amice meis.
Lecto te solum, lecto te deprecor uno,
Rivalem possum non ego ferre Jovem.
Stab me with sword, or poison strong
Give me to work my bane:
So thou court not my lass, so thou
From mistress mine refrain.
Command myself, my body, purse,
As thine own goods take all,
And as my ever dearest friend,
I ever use thee shall.
O spare my love, to have alone
Her to myself I crave,
Nay, Jove himself I'll not endure
My rival for to have.
This jealousy, which I am to treat of, is that which belongs to married
men, in respect of their own wives; to whose estate, as no sweetness,
pleasure, happiness can be compared in the world, if they live quietly
and lovingly together; so if they disagree or be jealous, those bitter
pills of sorrow and grief, disastrous mischiefs, mischances, tortures,
gripings, discontents, are not to be separated from them. A most
violent passion it is where it taketh place, an unspeakable torment, a
hellish torture, an infernal plague, as Ariosto calls it, a fury, a
continual fever, full of suspicion, fear, and sorrow, a martyrdom, a
mirth-marring monster. The sorrow and grief of heart of one woman
jealous of another, is heavier than death, Ecclus. xxviii. 6. as
[6028]Peninnah did Hannah, vex her and upbraid her sore. 'Tis a main
vexation, a most intolerable burden, a corrosive to all content, a
frenzy, a madness itself; as [6029]Beneditto Varchi proves out of that
select sonnet of Giovanni de la Casa, that reverend lord, as he styles
him.
SUBSECT. II.—_Causes of Jealousy. Who are most apt. Idleness,
melancholy, impotency, long absence, beauty, wantonness, naught
themselves. Allurements, from time, place, persons, bad usage, causes_.
Astrologers make the stars a cause or sign of this bitter passion, and
out of every man's horoscope will give a probable conjecture whether he
will be jealous or no, and at what time, by direction of the
significators to their several promissors: their aphorisms are to be
read in Albubater, Pontanus, Schoner, Junctine, &c. Bodine, cap. 5.
meth. hist. ascribes a great cause to the country or clime, and
discourseth largely there of this subject, saying, that southern men
are more hot, lascivious, and jealous, than such as live in the north;
they can hardly contain themselves in those hotter climes, but are most
subject to prodigious lust. Leo Afer telleth incredible things almost,
of the lust and jealousy of his countrymen of Africa, and especially
such as live about Carthage, and so doth every geographer of them in
[6030]Asia, Turkey, Spaniards, Italians. Germany hath not so many
drunkards, England tobacconists, France dancers, Holland mariners, as
Italy alone hath jealous husbands. And in [6031]Italy some account them
of Piacenza more jealous than the rest. In [6032]Germany, France,
Britain, Scandia, Poland, Muscovy, they are not so troubled with this
feral malady, although Damianus a Goes, which I do much wonder at, in
his topography of Lapland, and Herbastein of Russia, against the stream
of all other geographers, would fasten it upon those northern
inhabitants. Altomarius Poggius, and Munster in his description of
Baden, reports that men and women of all sorts go commonly into the
baths together, without all suspicion, the name of jealousy (saith
Munster) is not so much as once heard of among them. In Friesland the
women kiss him they drink to, and are kissed again of those they
pledge. The virgins in Holland go hand in hand with young men from
home, glide on the ice, such is their harmless liberty, and lodge
together abroad without suspicion, which rash Sansovinus an Italian
makes a great sign of unchastity. In France, upon small acquaintance,
it is usual to court other men's wives, to come to their houses, and
accompany them arm in arm in the streets, without imputation. In the
most northern countries young men and maids familiarly dance together,
men and their wives, [6033]which, Siena only excepted, Italians may not
abide. The [6034]Greeks, on the other side, have their private baths
for men and women, where they must not come near, nor so much as see
one another: and as [6035]Bodine observes lib. 5. de repub. the
Italians could never endure this, or a Spaniard, the very conceit of it
would make him mad: and for that cause they lock up their women, and
will not suffer them to be near men, so much as in the [6036]church,
but with a partition between. He telleth, moreover, how that when he
was ambassador in England, he heard Mendoza the Spanish legate finding
fault with it, as a filthy custom for men and women to sit
promiscuously in churches together; but Dr. Dale the master of the
requests told him again, that it was indeed a filthy custom in Spain,
where they could not contain themselves from lascivious thoughts in
their holy places, but not with us. Baronius in his Annals, out of
Eusebius, taxeth Licinius the emperor for a decree of his made to this
effect, Jubens ne viri simul cum mulieribus in ecclesia interessent:
for being prodigiously naught himself, aliorum naturam ex sua vitiosa
mente spectavit, he so esteemed others. But we are far from any such
strange conceits, and will permit our wives and daughters to go to the
tavern with a friend, as Aubanus saith, modo absit lascivia, and
suspect nothing, to kiss coming and going, which, as Erasmus writes in
one of his epistles, they cannot endure. England is a paradise for
women, and hell for horses: Italy a paradise for horses, hell for
women, as the diverb goes. Some make a question whether this headstrong
passion rage more in women than men, as Montaigne l. 3. But sure it is
more outrageous in women, as all other melancholy is, by reason of the
weakness of their sex. Scaliger Poet. lib. cap. 13. concludes against
women: [6037]Besides their inconstancy, treachery, suspicion,
dissimulation, superstition, pride, (for all women are by nature proud)
desire of sovereignty, if they be great women, (he gives instance in
Juno) bitterness and jealousy are the most remarkable affections.
Sed neque fulvus aper media tam fulvus in ira est,
Fulmineo rapidos dum rotat ore canes.
Nec leo, &c.———
Tiger, boar, bear, viper, lioness,
A woman's fury cannot express.
[6038]Some say redheaded women, pale-coloured, black-eyed, and of a
shrill voice, are most subject to jealousy.
[6039]High colour in a woman choler shows,
Naught are they, peevish, proud, malicious;
But worst of all, red, shrill, and jealous.
Comparisons are odious, I neither parallel them with others, nor debase
them any more: men and women are both bad, and too subject to this
pernicious infirmity. It is most part a symptom and cause of
melancholy, as Plater and Valescus teach us: melancholy men are apt to
be jealous, and jealous apt to be melancholy.
Pale jealousy, child of insatiate love,
Of heart-sick thoughts which melancholy bred,
A hell-tormenting fear, no faith can move,
By discontent with deadly poison fed;
With heedless youth and error vainly led.
A mortal plague, a virtue-drowning flood,
A hellish fire not quenched but with blood.
If idleness concur with melancholy, such persons are most apt to be
jealous; 'tis [6040]Nevisanus' note, an idle woman is presumed to be
lascivious, and often jealous. Mulier cum sola cogitat, male cogitat:
and 'tis not unlikely, for they have no other business to trouble their
heads with.
More particular causes be these which follow. Impotency first, when a
man is not able of himself to perform those dues which he ought unto
his wife: for though he be an honest liver, hurt no man, yet Trebius
the lawyer may make a question, an suum cuique tribuat, whether he give
every one their own; and therefore when he takes notice of his wants,
and perceives her to be more craving, clamorous, insatiable and prone
to lust than is fit, he begins presently to suspect, that wherein he is
defective, she will satisfy herself, she will be pleased by some other
means. Cornelius Gallus hath elegantly expressed this humour in an
epigram to his Lychoris.
[6041]Jamque alios juvenes aliosque requirit amores,
Me vocat imbellem decrepitumque senem, &c.
For this cause is most evident in old men, that are cold and dry by
nature, and married, succi plenis, to young wanton wives; with old
doting Janivere in Chaucer, they begin to mistrust all is not well,
———She was young and he was old,
And therefore he feared to be a cuckold.
And how should it otherwise be? old age is a disease of itself,
loathsome, full of suspicion and fear; when it is at best, unable,
unfit for such matters. [6042]Tam apta nuptiis quam bruma messibus, as
welcome to a young woman as snow in harvest, saith Nevisanus: Et si
capis juvenculam, faciet tibi cornua: marry a lusty maid and she will
surely graft horns on thy head. [6043]All women are slippery, often
unfaithful to their husbands (as Aeneas Sylvius epist. 38. seconds
him), but to old men most treacherous: they had rather mortem
amplexarier, lie with a corse than such a one: [6044]Oderunt illum
pueri, contemnunt mulieres. On the other side many men, saith
Hieronymus, are suspicious of their wives, [6045]if they be lightly
given, but old folks above the rest. Insomuch that she did not complain
without a cause in [6046]Apuleius, of an old bald bedridden knave she
had to her good man: Poor woman as I am, what shall I do? I have an old
grim sire to my husband, as bald as a coot, as little and as unable as
a child, a bedful of bones, he keeps all the doors barred and locked
upon me, woe is me, what shall I do? He was jealous, and she made him a
cuckold for keeping her up: suspicion without a cause, hard usage is
able of itself to make a woman fly out, that was otherwise honest,
[6047]———plerasque bonas tractatio pravas
Esse facit,———
bad usage aggravates the matter. Nam quando mulieres cognoscunt maritum
hoc advertere, licentius peccant, [6048]as Nevisanus holds, when a
woman thinks her husband watcheth her, she will sooner offend;
[6049]Liberius peccant, et pudor omnis abest, rough handling makes them
worse: as the goodwife of Bath in Chaucer brags,
In his own grease I made him frie
For anger and for every jealousie.
Of two extremes, this of hard usage is the worst. 'Tis a great fault
(for some men are uxorii) to be too fond of their wives, to dote on
them as [6050]Senior Deliro on his Fallace, to be too effeminate, or as
some do, to be sick for their wives, breed children for them, and like
the [6051] Tiberini lie in for them, as some birds hatch eggs by turns,
they do all women's offices: Caelius Rhodiginus ant. lect. Lib. 6. cap.
24. makes mention of a fellow out of Seneca, [6052]that was so besotted
on his wife, he could not endure a moment out of her company, he wore
her scarf when he went abroad next his heart, and would never drink but
in that cup she began first. We have many such fondlings that are their
wives' packhorses and slaves, (nam grave malum uxor superans virum
suum, as the comical poet hath it, there's no greater misery to a man
than to let his wife domineer) to carry her muff, dog, and fan, let her
wear the breeches, lay out, spend, and do what she will, go and come
whither, when she will, they give consent.
Here, take my muff, and, do you hear, good man;
Now give me pearl, and carry you my fan, &c.
[6053]———poscit pallam, redimicula, inaures;
Curre, quid hic cessas? vulgo vult illa videri,
Tu pete lecticas———
many brave and worthy men have trespassed in this kind, multos foras
claros domestica haec destruxit infamia, and many noble senators and
soldiers (as [6054]Pliny notes) have lost their honour, in being
uxorii, so sottishly overruled by their wives; and therefore Cato in
Plutarch made a bitter jest on his fellow-citizens, the Romans, we
govern all the world abroad, and our wives at home rule us. These
offend in one extreme; but too hard and too severe, are far more
offensive on the other. As just a cause may be long absence of either
party, when they must of necessity be much from home, as lawyers,
physicians, mariners, by their professions; or otherwise make
frivolous, impertinent journeys, tarry long abroad to no purpose, lie
out, and are gadding still, upon small occasions, it must needs yield
matter of suspicion, when they use their wives unkindly in the
meantime, and never tarry at home, it cannot use but engender some such
conceit.
[6055]Uxor si cessas amare te cogitat
Aut tote amari, aut potare, aut animo obsequi,
Ex tibi bene esse soli, quum sibi sit male.
If thou be absent long, thy wife then thinks,
Th' art drunk, at ease, or with some pretty minx,
'Tis well with thee, or else beloved of some,
Whilst she poor soul doth fare full ill at home.