ncommunicable,

"Fors etiam nostris invidit questibus aures;"

["Fortune also refuses ear to our complaints."
--Catullus, lxvii.]

for to what friend dare you intrust your griefs, who, if he does not
laugh at them, will not make use of the occasion to get a share of the
quarry? The sharps, as well as the sweets of marriage, are kept secret
by the wise; and amongst its other troublesome conditions this to a
prating fellow, as I am, is one of the chief, that custom has rendered it
indecent and prejudicial to communicate to any one all that a man knows
and all that a man feels. To give women the same counsel against
jealousy would be so much time lost; their very being is so made up of
suspicion, vanity, and curiosity, that to cure them by any legitimate way
is not to be hoped. They often recover of this infirmity by a form of
health much more to be feared than the disease itself; for as there are
enchantments that cannot take away the evil but by throwing it upon
another, they also willingly transfer this ever to their husbands, when
they shake it off themselves. And yet I know not, to speak truth,
whether a man can suffer worse from them than their jealousy; 'tis the
most dangerous of all their conditions, as the head is of all their
members. Pittacus used to say,--[Plutarch, On Contentment, c. II.]--
that every one had his trouble, and that his was the jealous head of his
wife; but for which he should think himself perfectly happy. A mighty
inconvenience, sure, which could poison the whole life of so just, so
wise, and so valiant a man; what must we other little fellows do? The
senate of Marseilles had reason to grant him his request who begged leave
to kill himself that he might be delivered from the clamour of his wife;
for 'tis a mischief that is never removed but by removing the whole
piece; and that has no remedy but flight or patience, though both of them
very hard. He was, methinks, an understanding fellow who said, 'twas a
happy marriage betwixt a blind wife and a deaf husband.

Let us also consider whether the great and violent severity of obligation
we enjoin them does not produce two effects contrary to our design
namely, whether it does not render the pursuants more eager to attack,
and the women more easy to yield. For as to the first, by raising the
value of the place, we raise the value and the desire of the conquest.
Might it not be Venus herself, who so cunningl