t once, without any tie, two things contrary in themselves.

Socrates was wont to say, that the city of Athens pleased, as ladies do
whom men court for love; every one loved to come thither to take a turn,
and pass away his time; but no one liked it so well as to espouse it,
that is, to inhabit there, and to make it his constant residence. I have
been vexed to see husbands hate their wives only because they themselves
do them wrong; we should not, at all events, methinks, love them the less
for our own faults; they should at least, upon the account of repentance
and compassion, be dearer to us.

They are different ends, he says, and yet in some sort compatible;
marriage has utility, justice, honour, and constancy for its share;
a flat, but more universal pleasure: love founds itself wholly upon
pleasure, and, indeed, has it more full, lively, and sharp; a pleasure
inflamed by difficulty; there must be in it sting and smart: 'tis no
longer love, if without darts and fire. The bounty of ladies is too
profuse in marriage, and dulls the point of affection and desire: to
evade which inconvenience, do but observe what pains Lycurgus and Plato
take in their laws.

Women are not to blame at all, when they refuse the rules of life that
are introduced into the world, forasmuch as the men make them without
their help. There is naturally contention and brawling betwixt them and
us; and the strictest friendship we have with them is yet mixed with
tumult and tempest. In the opinion of our author, we deal
inconsiderately with them in this: after we have discovered that they
are, without comparison, more able and ardent in the practice of love
than we, and that the old priest testified as much, who had been one
while a man, and then a woman:

"Venus huic erat utraque nota:"

["Both aspects of love were known to him,"
--Tiresias. Ovid. Metam., iii. 323.]

and moreover, that we have learned from their own mouths the proof that,
in several ages, was made by an Emperor and Empress of Rome,--[Proclus.]
--both famous for ability in that affair! for he in one night deflowered
ten Sarmatian virgins who were his captives: but she had five-and-twenty
bouts in one night, changing her man according to her need and liking;

"Adhuc ardens rigidae tentigine vulvae
Et lassata viris, nondum satiata, recessit:"

["Ardent still, she retired, fatig