22
The question being put by some of his friends to a certain Roman, why he had put away his wife, both sober, beautiful, chaste, and rich, the gentleman, putting forth his foot and showing his buskin, said: Is not this a new, handsome, complete shoe?—yet no man but myself knows where it pinches me. Therefore ought not a woman to boast either of her dower, her parentage, or beauty; but in such things as most delight a husband, pleasantness of converse, sweetness of disposition, and briskness of humor, there to show nothing of harshness, nothing distasteful, nothing offensive, but from day to day to study behavior jocund, blithe, and conformable to his temper. For as physicians are much more afraid of fevers that proceed from hidden causes, which have been by little and little contracting for a long time together, than those that receive their nourishment from apparent and manifest unconcoctions; thus, if daily continued, the petty snubs and frumps between man and wife, though perhaps unknown to others, are of that force that above all things else they canker conjugal affection, and destroy the pleasure of cohabitation.
23
King Philip so far doted on a fair Thessalian lady, that she was suspected to have used some private arts of fascination towards him. Wherefore Olympias labored to get the supposed sorceress into her power. But when the queen had viewed her well, and duly examined her beauty, beheld the graces of her deportment, and considered her discourse bespake her no less than a person of noble descent and education; Hence, fond suspicions, hence vainer calumnies! said she, for I plainly find the charms which thou makest use of are in thyself. Certainly therefore a lawful wife surpasses the common acceptation of happiness when, without enhancing the advantages of her wealth, nobility, and form, or vaunting the possession of Venus’s cestus itself, she makes it her business to win her husband’s affection by her virtue and sweetness of disposition.
