er, they assert that among us abuses of
this kind arise from the leisure and sloth of women. By these means they
lose their color and have pale complexions, and become feeble and small.
For this reason they are without proper complexions, use high sandals,
and become beautiful not from strength, but from slothful tenderness.
And thus they ruin their own tempers and natures, and consequently those
of their offspring. Furthermore, if at any time a man is taken captive
with ardent love for a certain woman, the two are allowed to converse
and joke together and to give one another garlands of flowers or leaves,
and to make verses. But if the race is endangered, by no means is
further union between them permitted. Moreover, the love born of eager
desire is not known among them; only that born of friendship.

Domestic affairs and partnerships are of little account, because,
excepting the sign of honor, each one receives what he is in need of.
To the heroes and heroines of the republic, it is customary to give
the pleasing gifts of honor, beautiful wreaths, sweet food, or splendid
clothes, while they are feasting. In the daytime all use white garments
within the city, but at night or outside the city they use red garments
either of wool or silk. They hate black as they do dung, and therefore
they dislike the Japanese, who are fond of black. Pride they consider
the most execrable vice, and one who acts proudly is chastised with the
most ruthless correction. Wherefore no one thinks it lowering to wait
at table or to work in the kitchen or fields. All work they call
discipline, and thus they say that it is honorable to go on foot, to do
any act of nature, to see with the eye, and to speak with the tongue;
and when there is need, they distinguish philosophically between tears
and spittle.

Every man who, when he is told off to work, does his duty, is considered
very honorable. It is not the custom to keep slaves. For they are
enough, and more than enough, for themselves. But with us, alas! it is
not so. In Naples there exist 70,000 souls, and out of these scarcely
10,000 or 15,000 do any work, and they are always lean from overwork
and are getting weaker every day. The rest become a prey to idleness,
avarice, ill-health, lasciviousness, usury, and other vices, and
contaminate and corrupt very many families by holding them in servitude
for their own use, by keeping them in poverty and slavishness, and by
imparting to them their own