give us more, aye, many times more, joy
than grief, since those arguments that we have often used to others
ought to be profitable to us in the present conjuncture, nor should we
sit down and rail against fortune, opposing to those joys many more
griefs.

Sec. IV. Those who were present at the funeral tell me with evident
surprise that you put on no mourning, and that you bedizened up neither
yourself nor your maids with the trappings of woe, and that there was no
ostentatious expenditure of money at the funeral, but that everything
was done orderly and silently in the presence of our relations. I am not
myself surprised that you, who never made a display either at the
theatre or on any other public occasion, and thought extravagance
useless even in the case of pleasure, should have been frugal in your
grief. For not only ought the chaste woman to remain uncorrupt in
Bacchanalian revels,[194] but she ought to consider her self-control not
a whit less necessary in the surges of sorrow and emotion of grief,
contending not (as most people think) against natural affection, but
against the extravagant wishes of the soul. For we are indulgent to
natural affection in the regret, and honour, and memory that it pays to
the dead: but the insatiable desire for a passionate display of
funeral grief, coming to the climax in coronachs and beatings of the
breast, is not less unseemly than intemperance in pleasure and is
unreasonably[195] forgiven only because pain and grief instead of
delight are elements in the unseemly exhibition. For what is more
unreasonable than to curtail excessive laughter or any other
demonstration of joy, and to allow a free vent to copious lamentation
and wailing that come from the same source? And how unreasonable is it,
as some husbands do, to quarrel with their wives about perfume and
purple robes, while they allow them to shear their heads in mourning,
and to dress in black, and to sit in idle grief, and to lie down in
weariness! And what is worst of all, how unreasonable is it for husbands
to interfere if their wives chastise the domestics and maids
immoderately or without sufficient cause, yet allow them to ill-treat
themselves cruelly in cases and conjunctures that require repose and
kindness!

Sec. V. But between us, my dear wife, there never was any occasion for such
a contest, nor do I think there ever will be. For as to your economy in
dress and simple way of living, there is no philosopher with