The Anatomy of Melancholy

This presumably made the Devil—as most interpreters maintain—leave Job his wicked wife after taking away his possessions, “the goods of body and fortune,” his health, children and friends, so as to persecute him still more. Pineda proves this from Tertullian, Cyprian, Augustine, Chrysostom, Prosper, Gaudentius and others: “so that a new kind of calamity might arise for the man from this,” to vex and torment him worse “than all hell,” worse than all its devils, knowing as he did the character of a bad woman.

“Jupiter has given man no more destructive evil,” says Simonides. “Better to dwell with a dragon or a lion than to keep house with a wicked wife,” Ecclesiasticus 25:18; “better to live in a wilderness,” Proverbs 21:19. “No wickedness is like hers,” Ecclesiasticus 25:22. “She causes a grieving heart, a sorrowful face, a wounded mind, weak hands and feeble knees,” verse 25. “A woman and death are the two bitterest things in the world.”

“I must take a wife today: he seemed to me to be saying, ‘Go home and hang yourself,’” Terence, Andria 1.5. Yet for all this, we bachelors wish to marry; like that Vestal virgin, we long for it:

Happy married women! May I die if marrying is not sweet.

“It is the sweetest thing in the world; I wish I had a wife,” he says:

For gladly would I leave the single life, If I could find myself a good wife.

“Heigh-ho for a husband!” she cries. A bad husband—indeed, the worst that ever was—is better than none. O blissful marriage, O most welcome marriage! Happy are those who are joined in this way. We eagerly seek it and are never at ease until we have achieved it.

But with what outcome? We are like the birds in the emblem that fed around a cage: as long as they could fly away whenever they wished, they liked it well enough. But once they were caught and could not get free, although they had the same food, they pined away in dejection and would not eat. So we praise marriage:

While we poor wretches are still free And gaze upon our mistress; but once, alas, the door is shut, What was honey becomes gall within.

As long as we are wooers, free to kiss and embrace whenever we please, nothing is so sweet: we think ourselves in heaven. But once we are bound and have lost our liberty, marriage is a hell: “Give me my yellow stockings again!” A mouse in a trap lives just as merrily; some of us are in purgatory, if not hell itself.

“War is sweet to those who have not experienced it,” as the proverb goes. It is fine to talk of war, and marriage is sweet to contemplate until it is tried. Then, just as war is terribly dangerous and distressing, with death at the door every minute, so is—etc.

When those wild Irish noblemen, says Stanihurst, were entertained by King Henry II when he kept Christmas in Dublin, they tasted his princely hospitality, fine wines and delicate food; they saw his heavy silver and gold plate, enamelled and set with jewels, golden candlesticks, splendid rich hangings and magnificent furnishings; they heard his trumpets, fifes and drums and his exquisite music of every kind.