第365章

The limits of honour are not cut so short; they may give themselves a little rein, and relax a little without being faulty: there lies on the frontier some space free, indifferent, and neuter. He that has beaten and pursued her into her fort is a strange fellow if he be not satisfied with his fortune: the price of the conquest is considered by the difficulty. Would you know what impression your service and merit have made in her heart? Judge of it by her behaviour. Such an one may grant more, who does not grant so much. The obligation of a benefit wholly relates to the good will of those who confer it: the other coincident circumstances are dumb, dead, and casual; it costs her dearer to grant you that little, than it would do her companion to grant all. If in anything rarity give estimation, it ought especially in this: do not consider how little it is that is given, but how few have it to give; the value of money alters according to the coinage and stamp of the place. Whatever the spite and indiscretion of some may make them say in the excess of their discontent, virtue and truth will in time recover all the advantage. I have known some whose reputation has for a great while suffered under slander, who have afterwards been restored to the world's universal approbation by their mere constancy without care or artifice; every one repents, and gives himself the lie for what he has believed and said; and from girls a little suspected they have been afterward advanced to the first rank amongst the ladies of honour. Somebody told Plato that all the world spoke ill of him. "Let them talk," said he; "I will live so as to make them change their note." Besides the fear of God, and the value of so rare a glory, which ought to make them look to themselves, the corruption of the age we live in compels them to it; and if I were they, there is nothing I would not rather do than intrust my reputation in so dangerous hands. In my time the pleasure of telling (a pleasure little inferior to that of doing) was not permitted but to those who had some faithful and only friend; but now the ordinary discourse and common table-talk is nothing but boasts of favours received and the secret liberality of ladies. In earnest, 'tis too abject, too much meanness of spirit, in men to suffer such ungrateful, indiscreet, and giddy-headed people so to persecute, forage, and rifle those tender and charming favours.

This our immoderate and illegitimate exasperation against this vice springs from the most vain and turbulent disease that afflicts human minds, which is jealousy:

"Quis vetat apposito lumen de lumine sumi?

Dent licet assidue, nil tamen inde perit;"

["Who says that one light should not be lighted from another light?

Let them give ever so much, as much ever remains to lose."--Ovid, De Arte Amandi, iii. 93. The measure of the last line is not good; but the words are taken from the epigram in the Catalecta entitled Priapus.] she, and envy, her sister, seem to me to be the most foolish of the whole troop. As to the last, I can say little about it; 'tis a passion that, though said to be so mighty and powerful, had never to do with me. As to the other, I know it by sight, and that's all. Beasts feel it; the shepherd Cratis, having fallen in love with a she-goat, the he-goat, out of jealousy, came, as he lay asleep, to butt the head of the female, and crushed it. We have raised this fever to a greater excess by the examples of some barbarous nations; the best disciplined have been touched with it, and 'tis reason, but not transported:

"Ense maritali nemo confossus adulter Purpureo Stygias sanguine tinxit aquas."

["Never did adulterer slain by a husband stain with purple blood the Stygian waters."]

Lucullus, Caesar, Pompey, Antony, Cato, and other brave men were cuckolds, and knew it, without making any bustle about it; there was in those days but one coxcomb, Lepidus, that died for grief that his wife had used him so.

"Ah! tum te miserum malique fati, Quem attractis pedibus, patente porta, Percurrent raphanique mugilesque:"

["Wretched man! when, taken in the fact, thou wilt be dragged out of doors by the heels, and suffer the punishment of thy adultery." --Catullus, xv. 17.] and the god of our poet, when he surprised one of his companions with his wife, satisfied himself by putting them to shame only, "Atque aliquis de dis non tristibus optat Sic fieri turpis:"

["And one of the merry gods wishes that he should himself like to be so disgraced."--Ovid, Metam., iv. 187.] and nevertheless took anger at the lukewarm embraces she gave him; complaining that upon that account she was grown jealous of his affection:

"Quid causas petis ex alto? fiducia cessit Quo tibi, diva, mei?"

["Dost thou seek causes from above? Why, goddess, has your confidence in me ceased?"--Virgil, AEneid, viii. 395.] nay, she entreats arms for a bastard of hers, "Arena rogo genitrix nato."

["I, a mother, ask armour for a son."--Idem, ibid., 383.] which are freely granted; and Vulcan speaks honourably of AEneas, "Arma acri facienda viro,"

["Arms are to be made for a valiant hero."--AEneid, viii. 441.] with, in truth, a more than human humanity. And I am willing to leave this excess of kindness to the gods:

"Nec divis homines componier aequum est."

["Nor is it fit to compare men with gods."--Catullus, lxviii. 141.]

As to the confusion of children, besides that the gravest legislators ordain and affect it in their republics, it touches not the women, where this passion is, I know not how, much better seated:

"Saepe etiam Juno, maxima coelicolam, Conjugis in culpa flagravit quotidiana."

["Often was Juno, greatest of the heaven-dwellers, enraged by her husband's daily infidelities."--Idem, ibid.]