40
Hermione seems to speak the truth when she says,Euripides, Andromache, 930; Cf. also Hieronymus, Adversus Iovinianum, i. chap. xlviii. (vol. ii. p. 292 of Migne’s edition). Bad women’s visits brought about my fall. This, however, does not come about so simply, but only when marital disagreements and jealousies open not only a wife’s doors but also her hearing to such women. So, at such a time especially, a woman who has sense ought to stop her ears, and be on her guard against whispered insinuations, so that fire may not be added to fire, Cf. the note on 123 F supra. and she ought to have ready in mind the saying of Philip. Cf.Moralia, 179 A and 457 F. A similar remark of Pausanias is quoted in Moralia , 230 D. For it is told that when he was being incited by his friends against the Greeks on the ground that they were being well treated, but were speaking ill of him, he said, What would happen, then, if we were to treat them ill? So when these back-biters say, Your husband treats grievously his loving and virtuous wife. Yes, what would happen, then, if I were to begin to hate him and wrong him?
41
A man whose slave had run away, on catching sight of the fugitive some time later, ran after him; but when the slave got ahead of him by taking refuge in a treadmill, the master said, Where else could I have wished to find you rather than here? A remark of the same tenor is attributed to Phocion by Plutarch, Moralia , 188 A, and Life of Phocion, chap. x. (p. 746 E). So then let the woman who, on account of jealousy, is entering a writ of divorce, and is in a high dudgeon, say to herself, Where else would my rival like better to see me, what would she rather have me do, than feel aggrieved with my husband and quarrel with him and abandon my very home and chamber?
