The Anatomy of Melancholy

But may the earth first gape open beneath me, Or the almighty Father drive me with his thunderbolt to the shades, The pale shades of Erebus and the depths of night, Before, O chastity, I violate you or break your laws.

First I would have the earth swallow me, Before I violate my chastity; Or thunder from above drive me to hell, To dwell with those pale ghosts and dreadful nights.

She is resolved, with Dido, to be chaste: though her husband is unfaithful, she will be true. And as Octavia wrote to her Antony:

These walls that keep me here out of sight Shall keep me wholly unstained for you, And bear witness that I will be faithful: I will never stain your house, though you shame me.

Set her free among all those Tarquins and satyrs: she will not be tempted. In the time of the emperor Valens, says St Augustine, a certain Archidamus, a consul of Antioch, offered a beautiful young wife a hundred pounds of gold, and also to free her husband, who was then “under the harshest confinement,” a prisoner in darkness, “in return for one night’s intercourse”; but the chaste wife would not accept it.

“When a man praised Theano’s beautiful arm to his companions, she answered him sharply, ‘Sir, it is not public property.’” She reserves herself entirely for her husband.

Bilia had an old man for her husband, whose breath stank so badly that no one outside the home could bear it. “Coming home one day, he rebuked his wife for not telling him about it. She assured him that she would have told him, except that she thought every man’s breath was as strong as his.”

Tigranes and his lady Armena were invited to supper by King Cyrus. When they came home, Tigranes asked his wife how she liked Cyrus, and what she particularly admired in him. “She swore that she had not noticed him. When he asked again what she had noticed, then, and whom she had looked at, she answered: her husband, who had said he would die for her sake.”

Such are the qualities and dispositions of good women. If she is well disposed, she will behave like this; if, on the other hand, she is unchaste, use every means you can: she will remain so. “It is not the willingness that is lacking, but a seducer.” She has as many lies and excuses as a hare has gaps to escape through—tricks, pimps, procuresses and schemes for deception. It is useless to confine her, or try to reform her through harsh treatment. Kindness may perhaps accomplish something.

You yourself will prevail more effectively through your consideration.

Men and women are in the same category in this respect: they are won over sooner and calmed more effectively in this way. “They wish to be led, not forced.” Though she is as thorough a scold as Xanthippe, as cruel as Medea, as loud in her complaints as Hecuba, or as lustful as Messalina, such means may reform her, if anything can.