The Anatomy of Melancholy

No god has deemed him worthy of the table, nor a goddess of her bed.

So did Lucretia, a lady of Siena, after she had merely seen Euryalus: “She was wholly swept towards Euryalus; when she returned home,” and so forth. In his presence she could not keep her eyes off him,

So much beauty shines from that noble face.

And in his absence she could think of no one else. “She hates her husband”: she immediately loathed her husband and could not bear him.

And neglecting the marriage bed, She feels bitter, sickening disgust in her husband’s presence.

Against all the laws of matrimony, She abhorred her husband’s face,

and sought every opportunity to see her sweetheart again. Now when a husband notices that his wife is so flighty, “so free and familiar with every gallant,” her immodesty and wantonness, as Camerarius observes, must necessarily give him grounds for suspicion.

When she continually dresses herself up beyond her means and station, makes pointless journeys and unnecessary visits, stays out so long with this or that companion, goes so frequently to plays, masques, feasts and public gatherings, uses such immodest gestures and unrestrained language, and also shows some distaste for her husband—how can he avoid being suspicious and immediately jealous, even if he were another Socrates? “At last she will make him overstep even Socratic bounds.”

All the more when he notices the secret, sly tricks they commonly use to make their husbands cuckolds: “While you play, she makes a plaything of you.” They profess love, honour and chastity, and seem to value their husbands above all living men. Saints in appearance, so skilfully can they dissemble that they will not so much as look at another man in their husband’s presence,

so chaste, so religious and devout that they cannot endure the name or sight of a whore, a harlot—shame on her! In outward behaviour they are most affectionate and attentive, kissing their husband and hanging about his neck—“dear husband, sweet husband”—and greeting him with a composed expression, especially when he comes home. If he leaves, they weep, sigh and lament, pretend to be ill and faint, like Jocundo’s wife in Ariosto when her husband was about to depart; yet they are utter—and so forth. They care nothing for him,

“Alas,” she said, “the thought so frightens me That scarcely any breath remains within my breast.” “Peace, my sweet love and wife,” Jocundo said, And wept as freely, comforting her as best he could, and so on. All this could not relieve the woman’s pain: “I must surely die before you return. I cannot think how I shall stay alive; The sorrowful days and nights I must endure Will keep food from my mouth and sleep from my eyes,” and so on. That very night before the morning On which he had firmly planned to leave, Jocundo’s wife was ill and fainted with grief Within his arms, so heavy was her heart.

Yet for all these sham tears and declarations, when Jocundo hurried back for a jewel he had forgotten,

He found his chaste companion in marriage Coupled with a knave, all chastity abandoned. The adulterer was sleeping soundly, Yet was easily recognized by his face: A beggar’s child whom he had raised from the cradle, Now riding in his master’s saddle.

Thus skilfully can they deceive, as Platina describes their habits: “Kiss their husbands, whom they would rather see hanging on a gallows, and swear they love him more dearly than their own lives; yet they would not ransom his life at the cost of their little dog’s.”