He tells a jealous husband, who watches his wife, that the greater his precautions, the greater are the temptations to sin.

Cruel husband, by setting a guard over the charming fair, thou dost avail nothing; by her own feelings must each be kept. If, all apprehensions removed, any woman is chaste, she, in fact, is chaste; she who sins not, because she cannot, still sins. 558 However well you may have guarded the person, the mind is still unchaste; and, unless it chooses, it cannot be constrained. You cannot confine the mind, should you lock up every thing; when all is closed, the unchaste one will be within. The one who can sin, errs less frequently; the very opportunity makes the impulse to wantonness to be the less powerful. Be persuaded by me, and leave off instigating to criminality by constraint; by indulgence thou mayst restrain it much more effectually.

I have sometimes seen the horse, struggling against his reins, rush on like lightning with his resisting mouth. Soon as ever he felt that rein was given, he stopped, and the loosened bridle lay upon his flowing mane. We are ever striving for what is forbidden, and are desiring what is denied us; even so does the sick man hanker after the water that is forbidden him. Argus used to carry a hundred eyes in his forehead, a hundred in his neck; 559 and these Love alone many a time evaded. DanaË, who, a maid, had been placed in the chamber which was to last for ever with its stone and its iron, 560 became a mother. Penelope, although she was without a keeper, amid so many youthful suitors, remained undefiled.

Whatever is hoarded up, we long for it the more, and the very pains invite the thief; few care for what another giants.

Not through her beauty is she captivating, but through the fondness of her husband; people suppose it to be something unusual which has so captivated thee. Suppose she is not chaste whom her husband is guarding, but faithless; she is beloved; but this apprehension itself causes her value, rather than her beauty. Be indignant if thou dost please; forbidden pleasures delight me: if any woman can only say, "I am afraid, that woman alone pleases me. Nor yet is it legal 561 to confine a free-born woman; let these fears harass the bodies of those from foreign parts. That the keeper, forsooth, may be able to say, 'I caused it she must be chaste for the credit of thy slave. He is too much of a churl whom a faithless wife injures, and is not sufficiently acquainted with the ways of the City; in which Romulus, the son of Ilia, and Remus, the son of Ilia, both begotten by Mars, were not born without a crime being committed. Why didst thou choose a beauty for thyself, if she was not pleasing unless chaste? Those two qualities 562 cannot by any means be united.'"

If thou art wise, show indulgence to thy spouse, and lay aside thy morose looks; and assert not the rights of a severe husband. Show courtesy, too, to the friends thy wife shall find thee, and many a one will she find. 'Tis thus that great credit accrues at a very small outlay of labour. Thus wilt thou be able always to take part in the festivities of the young men, and to see many a thing at home, 563 which you have not presented to her.