37
The generals issued orders to the Greeks in Cyrus’s army,Possibly a confused reminiscence of Xenophon, Anabasis, i. 7. 4, and i. 8. 11. that if the enemy advanced shouting they should receive them with silence, but, on the other hand, if the enemy kept silent, they should charge against them with a shout. Women who have sense keep quiet while their husbands in their fits of anger vociferate, but when their husbands are silent they talk to them and mollify them by words of comfort .
38
Euripides Medea, 190. Cf. also Plutarch, Moralia , 710 E. is right in censuring those who employ the lyre as an accompaniment to wine. For music ought rather to be invoked on occasions of anger and grief rather than to be made an added attraction for those who are engaged in their pleasures. So you two must regard those persons in error who for the sake of pleasure occupy the same bed, but when they get into some angry disagreement repose apart; they ought, instead, at that time especially to invoke Aphrodite, who is the best physician for such disorders. Such no doubt is the teaching of the poet Adapted from Homer, Il. xiv. 205, 209. when he represents Hera as saying, I will settle their uncomposed quarrels, Sending them back to their bed to a union of loving enjoyment.
39
At all times and in all places a wife ought to try to avoid any clash with her husband, and a husband with his wife, but they ought to be especially on their guard against doing this in the privacy of their bedchamber. The woman in travail and pain kept saying to those who were trying to make her go to bed, How can the bed cure this ailment which I contracted in bed? But the disagreements, recriminations, and angry passions which the bed generates are not easily settled in another place and at another time.
