Oh wretched are we husbands, who have sold
All liberty of life, all luxury,
And live as slaves of women, not as freemen.
We say we have a dowry; do we not
Endure the penalty, full of female bile,
Compared to which the bile of man's pure honey?
For men, though injured, pardon: but the women
First injure us, and then reproach us more;
They rule those whom they should not; those they should
They constantly neglect. They falsely swear;
They have no single hardship, no disease;
And yet they are complaining without end.
And Xenarchus, in his Sleep, says—
Are then the grasshoppers not happy, say you?
When they have wives who cannot speak a word.
And Philetærus, in his Corinthiast, says—
0 Jupiter, how soft and bland an eye
The lady has! 'Tis not for nothing we
Behold the temple of Hetæra here;
But there is not one temple to a wife
Throughout the whole of Greece.
And Amphis says in his Athamas—
Is not a courtesan much more good-humour'd
Than any wedded wife? No doubt she is,
And 'tis but natural; for she, by law,
Thinks she's a right to sulk and stay at home:
But well the other knows that 'tis her manners
By which alone she can retain her friends;
And if they fail, she must seek out some others.
8. And Eubulus, in his Chrysille, says—
May that man, fool as he is, who marries
A second wife, most miserably perish;
Him who weds one, I will not blame too much,
For he knew little of the ills he courted.
But well the widower had proved all
The ills which are in wedlock and in wives.
And a little further on he says—
0 holy Jove, may I be quite undone,
If e'er I say a word against the women,
The choicest of all creatures. And suppose
Medea was a termagant,—what then?
Was not Penelope a noble creature?
If one should say, "Just think of Clytæmnestra,"
I meet him with Alcestis chaste and true.
Perhaps he'll turn and say no good of Phædra;
But think of virtuous . . . who?. . . Alas, alas!
I cannot recollect another good one,
Though I could still count bad ones up by scores.
