Let us also consider whether the great and violent severity of obligation we enjoin them does not produce two effects contrary to our design namely, whether it does not render the pursuants more eager to attack, and the women more easy to yield.  For as to the first, by raising the value of the place, we raise the value and the desire of the conquest.  Might it not be Venus herself, who so cunningly enhanced the price of her merchandise, by making the laws her bawds; knowing how insipid a delight it would be that was not heightened by fancy and hardness to achieve?  In short, ‘tis all swine’s flesh, varied by sauces, as Flaminius’ host said.  Cupid is a roguish god, who makes it his sport to contend with devotion and justice:  ’tis his glory that his power mates all powers, and that all other rules give place to his: 

“Materiam culpae prosequiturque suae.”

["And seeks out a matter (motive) for his crimes.” 
—­Ovid, Trist., iv.  I. 34.]

As to the second point; should we not be less cuckolds, if we less feared to be so? according to the humour of women whom interdiction incites, and who are more eager, being forbidden: 

              “Ubi velis, nolunt; ubi nolis, volunt ultro;
               Concessa pudet ire via.”

["Where thou wilt, they won’t; where thou wilt not, they
spontaneously agree; they are ashamed to go in the permitted path.” 
—­Terence, Eunuchus, act iv., sc. 8, v 43]

What better interpretation can we make of Messalina’s behaviour?  She, at first, made her husband a cuckold in private, as is the common use; but, bringing her business about with too much ease, by reason of her husband’s stupidity, she soon scorned that way, and presently fell to making open love, to own her lovers, and to favour and entertain them in the sight of all:  she would make him know and see how she used him.  This animal, not to be roused with all this, and rendering her pleasures dull and flat by his too stupid facility, by which he seemed to authorise and make them lawful; what does she?  Being the wife of a living and healthful emperor, and at Rome, the theatre of the world, in the face of the sun, and with solemn ceremony, and to Silius, who had long before enjoyed her, she publicly marries herself one day that her husband was gone out of the city.  Does it not seem as if she was going to become chaste by her husband’s negligence? or that she sought another husband who might sharpen her appetite by his jealousy, and who by watching should incite her?  But the first difficulty she met with was also the last:  this beast suddenly roused these sleepy, sluggish sort of men are often the most dangerous:  I have found by experience that this extreme toleration, when it comes to dissolve, produces the most severe revenge; for taking fire on a sudden, anger and fury being combined in one, discharge their utmost force at the first onset,

“Irarumque omnes effundit habenas:”