The Anatomy of Melancholy Part 77

As the old man in the comedy cried out in a pa.s.sion, and from a 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]_p.r.o.na 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 G.o.dly 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. G.o.d himself, in some sense, is said to be jealous, [5991]"I am a jealous G.o.d, 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 G.o.ddesses 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 pa.s.sion, _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 Ba.s.sa, and divers others.

[6002]Bajazet the second Turk, jealous of the valour and greatness of Achmet Ba.s.sa, 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 compet.i.tors, 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 ma.s.sacred 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 n.o.bly 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 c.l.i.tus 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 t.i.tle, 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 partic.i.p.ation: and this jealousy belongs as well to brute beasts, as men.

Some creatures, saith [6014]Vives, swans, doves, c.o.c.ks, 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, Posc.u.n.t 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 admitt.i.t_, he will not admit another bull to feed in the same pasture, saith [6016]Oppin: which Stepha.n.u.s 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 c.o.c.k 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 pa.s.sion 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 pa.s.sion 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 partic.i.p.ate 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 partic.i.p.ation 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 pa.s.sion _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, partic.i.p.ate 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 la.s.s, 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 pa.s.sion it is where it taketh place, an unspeakable torment, a h.e.l.lish 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 pa.s.sion, 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, Ponta.n.u.s, 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 l.u.s.t. Leo Afer telleth incredible things almost, of the l.u.s.t 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 Damia.n.u.s 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 unchast.i.ty. 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 part.i.tion between. He telleth, moreover, how that "when he was amba.s.sador 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 c.u.m 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 Auba.n.u.s 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 h.e.l.l for horses: Italy a paradise for horses, h.e.l.l for women, as the diverb goes.

Some make a question whether this headstrong pa.s.sion 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 s.e.x. Scaliger _Poet. lib. cap. 13._ concludes against women: [6037]"Besides their inconstancy, treachery, suspicion, dissimulation, superst.i.tion, 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 h.e.l.l-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 h.e.l.lish fire not quenched but with blood."

If idleness concur with melancholy, such persons are most apt to be jealous; 'tis [6040]Nevisa.n.u.s' note, "an idle woman is presumed to be lascivious, and often jealous." _Mulier c.u.m 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 p.r.o.ne to l.u.s.t 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 Nevisa.n.u.s: _Et si capis juvenculam, faciet tibi cornua_: marry a l.u.s.ty 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 cognosc.u.n.t maritum hoc advertere, licentius peccant_, [6048]as Nevisa.n.u.s 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 m.u.f.f, 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 m.u.f.f, 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 trespa.s.sed in this kind, _multos foras claros domestica haec destruxit infamia_, and many n.o.ble 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."

Hippocrates, the physician, had a smack of this disease; for when he was to go home as far as Abdera, and some other remote cities of Greece, he writ to his friend Dionysius (if at least those [6056]Epistles be his) [6057]

"to oversee his wife in his absence, (as Apollo set a raven to watch his Coronis) although she lived in his house with her father and mother, who be knew would have a care of her; yet that would not satisfy his jealousy, he would have his special friend Dionysius to dwell in his house with her all the time of his peregrination, and to observe her behaviour, how she carried herself in her husband's absence, and that she did not l.u.s.t after other men. [6058]For a woman had need to have an overseer to keep her honest; they are bad by nature, and lightly given all, and if they be not curbed in time, as an unpruned tree, they will be full of wild branches, and degenerate of a sudden." Especially in their husband's absence: though one Lucretia were trusty, and one Penelope, yet Clytemnestra made Agamemnon cuckold; and no question there be too many of her conditions. If their husbands tarry too long abroad upon unnecessary business, well they may suspect: or if they run one way, their wives at home will fly out another, _quid pro quo_. Or if present, and give them not that content which they ought, [6059]_Primum ingratae, mox invisae noctes quae per somnum transiguntur_, they cannot endure to lie alone, or to fast long. [6060]

Peter G.o.defridus, in his second book of Love, and sixth chapter, hath a story out of St. Anthony's life, of a gentleman, who, by that good man's advice, would not meddle with his wife in the pa.s.sion week, but for his pains she set a pair of horns on his head. Such another he hath out of Abstemius, one persuaded a new married man, [6061]"to forbear the three first nights, and he should all his lifetime after be fortunate in cattle,"

but his impatient wife would not tarry so long: well he might speed in cattle, but not in children. Such a tale hath Heinsius of an impotent and slack scholar, a mere student, and a friend of his, that seeing by chance a fine damsel sing and dance, would needs marry her, the match was soon made, for he was young and rich, _genis gratus, corpore glabellus, arte multiscius, et fortuna opulentus_, like that Apollo in [6062]Apuleius. The first night, having liberally taken his liquor (as in that country they do) my fine scholar was so fuzzled, that he no sooner was laid in bed, but he fell fast asleep, never waked till morning, and then much abashed, _purpureis formosa rosis c.u.m Aurora ruberet_; when the fair morn with purple hue 'gan s.h.i.+ne, he made an excuse, I know not what, out of Hippocrates Cous, &c., and for that time it went current: but when as afterward he did not play the man as he should do, she fell in league with a good fellow, and whilst he sat up late at his study about those criticisms, mending some hard places in Festus or Pollux, came cold to bed, and would tell her still what he had done, she did not much regard what he said, &c. [6063]"She would have another matter mended much rather, which he did not conceive was corrupt:" thus he continued at his study late, she at her sport, _alibi enim festivas noctes agitabat_, hating all scholars for his sake, till at length he began to suspect, and turned a little yellow, as well he might; for it was his own fault; and if men be jealous in such cases ([6064]as oft it falls out) the mends is in their own hands, they must thank themselves. Who will pity them, saith Neander, or be much offended with such wives, _si deceptae prius viros decipiant, et cornutos reddant_, if they deceive those that cozened them first. A lawyer's wife in [6065]Aristaenetus, because her husband was negligent in his business, _quando lecto danda opera_, threatened to cornute him: and did not stick to tell Philinna, one of her gossips, as much, and that aloud for him to hear: "If he follow other men's matters and leave his own, I'll have an orator shall plead my cause," I care not if he know it.