y enhanced the price of her
merchandise, by making the laws her bawds; knowing how insipid a delight
it would be that was not heightened by fancy and hardness to achieve?
In short, 'tis all swine's flesh, varied by sauces, as Flaminius' host
said. Cupid is a roguish god, who makes it his sport to contend with
devotion and justice: 'tis his glory that his power mates all powers, and
that all other rules give place to his:

"Materiam culpae prosequiturque suae."

["And seeks out a matter (motive) for his crimes."
--Ovid, Trist., iv. I. 34.]

As to the second point; should we not be less cuckolds, if we less feared
to be so? according to the humour of women whom interdiction incites, and
who are more eager, being forbidden:

"Ubi velis, nolunt; ubi nolis, volunt ultro;
Concessa pudet ire via."

["Where thou wilt, they won't; where thou wilt not, they
spontaneously agree; they are ashamed to go in the permitted path."
--Terence, Eunuchus, act iv., sc. 8, v 43]

What better interpretation can we make of Messalina's behaviour? She,
at first, made her husband a cuckold in private, as is the common use;
but, bringing her business about with too much ease, by reason of her
husband's stupidity, she soon scorned that way, and presently fell to
making open love, to own her lovers, and to favour and entertain them in
the sight of all: she would make him know and see how she used him. This
animal, not to be roused with all this, and rendering her pleasures dull
and flat by his too stupid facility, by which he seemed to authorise and
make them lawful; what does she? Being the wife of a living and
healthful emperor, and at Rome, the theatre of the world, in the face of
the sun, and with solemn ceremony, and to Silius, who had long before
enjoyed her, she publicly marries herself one day that her husband was
gone out of the city. Does it not seem as if she was going to become
chaste by her husband's negligence? or that she sought another husband
who might sharpen her appetite by his jealousy, and who by watching
should incite her? But the first difficulty she met with was also the
last: this beast suddenly roused these sleepy, sluggish sort of men are
often the most dangerous: I have found by experience that this extreme
toleration, when it comes to dissolve, produces the most severe revenge;
for taking fire on a sudden, anger and fury