["Wretched man! when, taken in the fact, thou wilt be
dragged out of doors by the heels, and suffer the punishment
of thy adultery.”—­Catullus, xv. 17.]

and the god of our poet, when he surprised one of his companions with his wife, satisfied himself by putting them to shame only,

               “Atque aliquis de dis non tristibus optat
               Sic fieri turpis:” 

          ["And one of the merry gods wishes that he should himself
          like to be so disgraced.”—­Ovid, Metam., iv. 187.]

and nevertheless took anger at the lukewarm embraces she gave him; complaining that upon that account she was grown jealous of his affection: 

               “Quid causas petis ex alto? fiducia cessit
               Quo tibi, diva, mei?”

     ["Dost thou seek causes from above?  Why, goddess, has your
     confidence in me ceased?”—­Virgil, AEneid, viii. 395.]

nay, she entreats arms for a bastard of hers,

“Arena rogo genitrix nato.”

          ["I, a mother, ask armour for a son.”—­Idem, ibid., 383.]

which are freely granted; and Vulcan speaks honourably of AEneas,

“Arma acri facienda viro,”

     ["Arms are to be made for a valiant hero.”—­AEneid, viii. 441.]

with, in truth, a more than human humanity.  And I am willing to leave this excess of kindness to the gods: 

“Nec divis homines componier aequum est.”

          ["Nor is it fit to compare men with gods.” 
          —­Catullus, lxviii. 141.]

As to the confusion of children, besides that the gravest legislators ordain and affect it in their republics, it touches not the women, where this passion is, I know not how, much better seated: 

               “Saepe etiam Juno, maxima coelicolam,
               Conjugis in culpa flagravit quotidiana.”

     ["Often was Juno, greatest of the heaven-dwellers, enraged by her
     husband’s daily infidelities.”—­Idem, ibid.]

When jealousy seizes these poor souls, weak and incapable of resistance, ’tis pity to see how miserably it torments and tyrannises over them; it insinuates itself into them under the title of friendship, but after it has once possessed them, the same causes that served for a foundation of good-will serve them for a foundation of mortal hatred.  ’Tis, of all the diseases of the mind, that which the most things serve for aliment and the fewest for remedy:  the virtue, health, merit, reputation of the husband are incendiaries of their fury and ill-will: 

          “Nullae sunt inimicitiae, nisi amoris, acerbae.”

          ["No enmities are bitter, save that of love.” 
          (Or:) “No hate is implacable except the hatred of love”
          —­Propertius, ii. 8, 3.]