_He tells a jealous husband, who watches his wife, that the greater his
precautions, the greater are the temptations to sin._
|Cruel husband, by setting a guard over the charming fair, thou
dost avail nothing; by her own feelings must each be kept. If, all
apprehensions removed, any woman is chaste, she, in fact, is chaste; she
who sins not, because she cannot, _still_ sins. [558] However well you
may have guarded the person, the mind is still unchaste; and, unless it
chooses, it cannot be constrained. You cannot confine the mind, should
you lock up every thing; when all is closed, the unchaste one will be
within. The one who can sin, errs less frequently; the very opportunity
makes the impulse to wantonness to be the less powerful. Be persuaded
by me, and leave off instigating to criminality by constraint; by
indulgence thou mayst restrain it much more effectually.
I have sometimes seen the horse, struggling against his reins, rush on
like lightning with his resisting mouth. Soon as ever he felt that rein
was given, he stopped, and the loosened bridle lay upon his flowing
mane. We are ever striving for what is forbidden, and are desiring what
is denied us; even so does the sick man hanker after the water that is
forbidden him. Argus used to carry a hundred eyes in his forehead, a
hundred in his neck; [559] and these Love alone many a time evaded.
Danaë, who, a maid, had been placed in the chamber which was to last
for ever with its stone and its iron, [560] became a mother. Penelope,
although she was without a keeper, amid so many youthful suitors,
remained undefiled.
Whatever is hoarded up, we long for it the more, and the very pains
invite the thief; few care for what another giants.
Not through her beauty is she captivating, but through the fondness
of her husband; people suppose it to be something unusual which has so
captivated thee. Suppose she is not chaste whom her husband is guarding,
but faithless; she is beloved; but this apprehension itself causes
her value, rather than her beauty. Be indignant if thou dost please;
forbidden pleasures delight me: if any woman can only say, "I am
afraid, that woman alone pleases me. Nor yet is it legal [561] to
confine a free-born woman; let these fears harass the bodies of those
from foreign parts. That the keeper, forsooth, may be able to say, 'I
caused it she must be chaste for the credit of thy slave. He is too
much of a churl whom a faithless wife injures, and is not sufficiently
acquainted with the ways of the City; in which Romulus, the son of Ilia,
and Remus, the son of Ilia, both begotten by Mars, were not born without
a crime being committed. Why didst thou choose a beauty for thyself, if
she was not pleasing unless chaste? Those two qualities [562] cannot by
any means be united.'"
If thou art wise, show indulgence to thy spouse, and lay aside thy
morose looks; and assert not the rights of a severe husband. Show
courtesy, too, to the friends thy wife shall find thee, and many a
one will she find. 'Tis thus that great credit accrues at a very small
outlay of labour. Thus wilt thou be able always to take part in the
festivities of the young men, and to see many a thing at home, [563]
which you have not presented to her.