Cure of Jealosie: buy avoiding occasions, not to be idle: of good counsell: to contemn it, not to watch or lock them up: to dissemble it, &c.

As of all other melancholy, some doubt whether this malady may be cured or no, they think ’tis like the Gout, or Suitzers, whom we commonly call Wallownes, those hired souldiers, if once they take possession of a Castle, they can never be got out.

Qui timet ut sua sit, ne quis sibi subtrahat illam, Ille Machaonia vix ope salvus erit.

This is that cruel wound against whose smart, No liquors force prevailes, or any plaister, No skill of stars, no depth of Magick art, Devised by that great clerk Zoroaster, A wound that so infects the soul and heart, As all our sense and reason it doth master; A wound whose pang and torment is so durable, As it may rightly called be incurable.

Yet what I have formerly said of other Melancholy, I will say again; it may be cured or mitigated at least by some contrary passion, good counsel and perswasion, if it be withstood in the beginning, maturely resisted, and as those Ancients hold, the nailes of it be pared before they grow too long.

No better means to resist or repell it then by avoiding idleness, to be still seriously busied about some matters of importance, to drive out those vain fears, foolish fantasies and irksome suspitions out of his head, and then to be perswaded by his judicious friends, to give ear to their good counsel and advice,

and wisely to consider, how much he discredits himself, his friends, dishonours his children, disgraceth his family, publisheth his shame, and as a trumpeter of his own misery, divulgeth, macerates, grieves himself and others; what an argument of weakness it is, how absurd a thing in its own nature, how ridiculous, how brutish a passion, how sottish, how odious; for as Hierome well hath it, Odium sui facit, & ipse novissimè sibi odio est, others hate him, and at last he hates himself for it; how harebrain a disease, mad and furious. If he will but hear them speak, no doubt he may be cured.

Ioan Queen of Spain, of whom I have formerly spoken, under pretence of changing air, was sent to Complutum, or Alcada de las Heneras, where Ximenius the Archbishop of Toledo then lived, that by his good counsel (as for the present she was) she might be eased. For a disease of the soul, if concealed, tortures and overturnes it, and by no physick can sooner be removed then by a discreet mans comfortable speeches.

I will not here insert any consolatory sentences to this purpose, or forestall any mans invention, but leave it every one to dilate and amplifie as he shall think fit in his own judgment: let him advise with Siracides cap.9.1. Be not jealous over the wife of thy bosome; read that comfortable and pithy speech to this purpose of Ximenius in the author himself, as it is recorded by Gomesius; consult with Chaloner lib.9.de repub. Anglor. or Cælia in her Epistles, &c.

Only this I will add, that if it be considered aright, which causeth this jealous passion, be it just or unjust, whether with or without cause, true or false, it ought not so hainously to be taken; ’tis no such real or capital matter, that it should make so deep a wound. ’Tis a blow that hurts not, an insensible smart, grounded many times upon false suspition alone, and so fostered by a sinister conceit.

If she be not dishonest, he troubles and macerates himself without a cause; or put case which is the worst, he be a cuckold, it cannot be helped, the more he stirres in it, the more he aggravates his own misery. How much better were it in such a case to dissemble or contemn it? why should that be feared which cannot be redressed? multæ tandem deposuerunt (saith Vives) quum flecti maritos non posse vident, many women when they see there is no remedy, have been pacified; and shall men be more jealous then women? ’Tis some comfort in such a case to have companions,

Solamen miseris socios habuisse doloris;

Who can say he is free? Who can assure himself he is not one de præterito, or secure himself de futuro? If it were his case alone, it were hard; but being as it is almost a common calamity, ’tis not so grievously to be taken. If a man have a lock, which every mans key will open, as well as his own; why should he think to keep it private to himself?

In some countries they make nothing of it, ne nobiles quidem, saith Leo Afer, in many parts of Africk (if she be past fourteen) there’s not a Noble man that marries a maid, or that hath a chast wife; ’tis so common; as the Moon gives horns once a moneth to the world, do they to their husbands at least.

And ’tis most part true which that Caledonian Lady, Argetocoxus a Brittish Prince his wife, told Iulia Augusta, when she took her up for dishonesty, We Brittaines are naught at least with some few choice men of the better sort, but you Romanes lye with every base knave, you are a company of common whores.

Severus the Emperor in his time made laws for the restraint of this vice; and as Dion Nicæus relates in his life, tria millia mœchorum, three thousand cuckold makers, or naturæ monetam adulterantes, as Philo cals them, false coyners, and clippers of natures money, were summoned into the Court at once. And yet,

Non omnem molitor quæ fluit unda videt,

the Miller sees not all the water that goes by his mill: no doubt but as in our daies, these were of the commonalty, all the great ones were not so much as called in question for it. Martials Epigram I suppose might have been generally applied in those licencious times, Omnia solus habes, &c. thy goods, lands, mony, wits are thine own, Uxorem sed habes Candide cum populo; but neighbour Candidus your wife is common:

Husband and Cuckold in that age it seems were reciprocal termes; the Emperors themselves did wear Actæons badge; how many Cæsars might I reckon up together, and what a catalogue of cornuted Kings and Princes in every story? Agamemnon, Menelaus, Philippus, of Greece, Ptolomeus of Ægypt, Lucullus, Cæsar, Pompeius, Cato, Augustus, Antonius, Antoninus, &c. that wore fair plumes of Bulls feathers in their crests. The bravest souldiers and most heroical spirits could not avoid it. They have been active and passive in this business, they have either given or taken horns.

King Arthur whom we call one of the nine worthies, for all his great valour was unworthily served by Mordred one of his Round-table knights: and Guithera, or Helena Alba his fair wife, as Leland interprets it, was an arrant honest woman. Parcerem libenter (saith mine author) Heroinarum læsæ majestati, si non historiæ veritas aurem vellicaret, I could willingly wink at a fair Ladies faults, but that I am bound by the laws of history to tell the truth: against his will, God knows, did he write it, and so do I repeat it.

I speak not of our times all this while, we have good, honest, vertuous men and women, whom fame, zeal, fear of God, religion and superstition containes: and yet for all that, we have too many knights of this order, so dubbed by their wives, many good women abused by dissolute husbands. In some places, and such persons you may as soon injoyn them to carry water in a Sive, as to keep themselves honest.

What shall a man do now in such a case? What remedy is to be had? how shall he be eased? By suing a divorce? that is hard to be effected: si non caste, tamen cautè, they carry the matter so cunningly, that though it be as common as Simony, as clear and as manifest as the nose in a mans face, yet it cannot be evidently proved, or they likely taken in the fact: they will have a knave Gallus to watch, or with that Roman Sulpitia, all made fast and sure,

Ne se Cadurcis destitutam fasciis, Nudam Caleno concumbentem videat.

She will hardly be surprised by her husband, be he never so wary. Much better then to put it up: the more he strives in it, the more he shall divulge his own shame; make a vertue of necessity, and conceal it. Yea but the world takes notice of it, ’tis in every mans mouth: let them talke their pleasure, of whom speak they not in this sence? From the highest to the lowest they are thus censured all: there is no remedy then but patience.

It may be ’tis his own fault, and he hath no reason to complain, ’tis quid pro quo, she is bad, he is worse: Bethink thy self, hast thou not done as much for some of thy neighbours? why dost thou require that of thy wife, which thou wilt not performe thy self? Thou rangest like a Town Bull, why art thou so incensed if she tread awry?