ing them more stupid than the
animals. Nor is the temptation of women less violent than that of wine.
Women's beauty is even more potent, for once a man perceives it he
becomes as if blind to all other things; his reason deserts him, he
broods upon it by day, and falls at last, as our brother has told us,
into unseasonable pleasures, like Solomon himself, about whom many
things are related, but not so far as I know that he became so
intoxicated with women's various beauty that he found his pleasure at
last in his own humiliation. If Solomon did not, others have; for there
is a story of a king that allowed his love of a certain queen to take so
great a hold upon him that he asked her to come up the steps of his
throne to strike him on the face, to take his crown from his head and
set it upon her own. This was in his old age, and it is in old age that
men fall under the unreasonable sway of women--he was once a wise man,
so we should refrain from blame, and pity our brethren who have fallen
headlong into the sway of these Chaldean and Arabian women. I might say
much more on this subject, but words are useless, so deeply is the
passion for women ingrained in the human heart. Proceed, therefore,
Brother: we would hear the trouble that women have brought on thee,
Brother Eleakim. At once all eyes were turned towards the little fellow
whose wandering odours put into everybody's mind thoughts of the great
price he must have paid in bracelets and fine linen, but Eleakim told a
different story--that he was sought for himself alone, too much so, for
the Arabian woman that fell to his lot was not content with the chaste
and reasonable intercourse suitable for the begetting of children, the
reason for which they had met, but would practise with him heathen
rites, and of a kind so terrible that one night he fled to his president
to ask for counsel. But the president, who was absorbed in his own
pleasures, drove him from his door, saying that every man must settle
such questions with his wife. Hazael threw up his hands. Say no more,
Brother Eleakim, thou didst well to leave that cenoby. We welcome thee,
and having heard thee in brief we would now hear Brother Shaphan. At
once all eyes were turned towards the short, thick, silent man, who had
till now ventured into no words; and as they looked upon him their
thoughts dwelt on the strange choice the curator had made when he chose
Brother Shaphan for a husband; for though they were withou