Page:Juvenal and Persius by G. G. Ramsay.djvu/62

 poets that I never heard of; she has every trick of speech at her fingers' ends, and will pull you up for the smallest slip in grammar. Take no such wife to your bosom! (434–456.)

Still more unbearable is the wealthy wife, who thinks that everything is permitted to her. Her neck, her ears, are resplendent with precious stones; she plasters her face with bread-poultices and Poppaean pastes which stick to her husband's lips when he gives her a kiss. She never cares to look well at home; it is for lovers only that a clean skin and Indian perfumes are reserved. In due time she washes off the layers with asses' milk, and the face can be recognised as a face instead of as a sore! (457–473.)

If the husband has been neglectful, the maids will suffer for it; the slightest fault will bring down a thrashing on them with whip or cane; some women engage their floggers by the year. The lady meanwhile is making up her face, or chatting with her friends, or examining a piece of embroidery, or reading the Gazette; not less cruel than Phalaris, she keeps her flogger at it all the time. If in a hurry to keep an assignation, she wreaks her vengeance on her tirewoman with a thong of bull's hide for every curl out of place, while the second maid builds up the lofty erection on her head; so serious is the art of beautification! so complicated the artistic structure! Not a thought for the husband all this lviii