Aristotle must discover the movement of the Euripus; Pliny must see Vesuvius—but how did they fare? One loses his possessions, another his life. Pyrrhus will conquer Africa first, and then Asia.

One will be sole monarch, another immortal, a third rich, a fourth gives orders. “In a great whirlwind, anxious hopes wander through the cities.” We run, ride, labour tirelessly, all rising early and lying down late, striving to obtain what we would be better without. Meddlers and busybodies as we are, it would be far better for us to be quiet, sit still and take our ease.

His only concern is with words, that they should be

Lovely phrases, all arranged like little mosaic tiles,

Without a syllable out of place, to dress up a subject worth a straw; just as your only concern is with clothes—to follow fashion, to be trim and polished: both with equal profit. Another’s sole delight is building; he exhausts his resources acquiring exquisite pictures, elaborate models and plans. Another is wholly punctilious about titles, ranks and inscriptions.

A third is excessively anxious about his diet. He must have this or that exquisite sauce, food prepared just so, brought from far away—“birds from foreign skies”—cooked in just this way, and so on; something to excite his thirst, then something else to quench it. Thus he buys back his appetite at extraordinary expense, yet is seldom pleased with any meal, while an ordinary stomach enjoys everything and takes offence at nothing.

Another must have roses in winter, “flowers of another season,” snow-water in summer, fruit before it can be, or usually is, ripe; artificial gardens and fishponds on the roofs of houses; everything unlike what ordinary people have, elaborate and rare, or else it is worthless.

Thus restless, fastidious, over-inquisitive minds make things unbearable in every calling, trade, action and occupation which do not trouble duller understandings. They eagerly pursue what others just as scornfully disregard. Through our foolish curiosity we wear ourselves away, exhaust our souls, and rush headlong, through lack of judgement, perversity of will and lack of self-control, into countless needless cares and troubles, useless expenses, tedious journeys and laborious hours. And when all is done, “What is the point of all this? What good does it do?” To what end?

To wish not to know what the greatest Teacher Does not wish to teach is learned ignorance.

Among these passions and distressing circumstances we may rank an unhappy marriage. Marriage is a condition of life ordained by God himself in Paradise, an honourable and happy state, and as great a blessing as can befall a man in this world, if the partners can agree as they should and live as Seneca lived with his Paulina. But if they are ill matched or at odds, no greater misery can be imagined: to have a shrew, a slattern, a whore, a fool, a fury or a fiend—there can be no affliction like it.

Ecclesiasticus 26:14: “He who has her is as though he held a scorpion”; and 26:25: “A wicked wife makes a sorrowful face and a heavy heart”; and he would rather live with a lion than keep house with such a wife. Giovanni Pontano has described her characteristics at length, under the name Euphorbia, in his dialogue Antonius, volume 2.

Or, if they are unequal in age, the same trouble arises. Caecilius, in Aulus Gellius, book 2, chapter 23, complains bitterly of an old wife: “While I long for her death, I myself live dead among the living.” While I eagerly await her death, I live a dead man among the living. Or if they take a dislike to each other for any reason:

Judge, you who are unhappily married, What it is to come to a bed you loathe.

The same misfortune befalls women.

But you, hard-hearted parents, mourn your wretched daughter, If I bring myself, by the blade or the noose, to release myself From this unhappy fate.

Hard-hearted parents, both lament my fate, If I kill or hang myself to ease my plight.

A young gentlewoman in Basel, says Felix Platter in Observations, book 1, was married against her will to an elderly man whom she could not love. She was continually melancholy and wasted away with grief; and although her husband did everything he possibly could to please her, in her unhappiness she eventually hanged herself. He relates many other stories of this kind.

Thus men are afflicted by women, and women in turn by men, when their temperaments and characters differ: he a spendthrift, she thrifty; one honest, the other dishonest, and so on. Parents often distress their children, and children their parents. “A foolish son is a grief to his mother.” “The unjust stepmother”:

A stepmother often troubles an entire family, provides grounds for regret, tests patience and fuels discord. This made Cato’s son remonstrate with his father when he proposed to marry the young daughter of his client Salonius: “For what reason was he bringing in a stepmother?” What offence had the son committed, that his father should marry again?