Page:Plutarch - Moralia, translator Holland, 1911.djvu/280

258 strange occurrent. With that the senator beforesaid, turning aside and smiling, thus said to himself: Well done, wife, I con thee thank for thy quickness and celerity, thou hast quit thyself well indeed, that the word which erewhile I uttered unto thee is gotten before me into the market-place. Well, the first thing that he did was this: To the magistrates he went straightways, signified unto them the occasion of this speech, and freed them from all fear and trouble: but when he was come home to his own house he fell in hand to chastise his wife: How now, dame (quoth he), how is this come to pass? you have undone me for ever; for it is found and known for a truth, that this secret and matter of counsel which I imparted to you, is divulged and published abroad, and that out of my house: and thus your unbridled tongue is the cause that I must abandon and fly my country, and forthwith depart into exile. Now when at the first she would have denied the thing stoutly, and alleged for her excuse and defence, saying: Are not there three hundred senators besides yourself who heard it as well as you? No marvel then if it be known abroad. What, tell you me of three hundred (quoth he). Upon your importunate instance, I devised it of mine own head, in mirth, to try your silence, and whether you could keep counsel. Certes, this senator was a wise man and went safely and warily to work, who to make proof of his wife, whom he took to be no sounder nor surer than a cracked and rotten vessel, would not pour into it either wine or oil, but water only, to see if it would leak and run out.

But Fulvius, one of the favourites and minions of Augustus the emperor, when he was now well steeped in years, having heard him toward his latter days lamenting and bewailing the desolate estate of his house, in that he had no children of his own body begotten, and that of his three nephews or sisters' children two were dead, and Posthumius (who only remained alive), upon an imputation charged upon him, confined and living in banishment, whereupon he was enforced to bring in his wife's son, and declare him heir apparent to succeed him in the empire: notwithstanding upon a tender compassion he was otherwhiles in deliberation with himself, and minded to recall his foresaid sister's son from exile and the place whereunto he was confined. Fulvius (I say), being privy to these moans and designs of his, went home and told his wife all that he had heard. She could not hold, but goes to the Empress Livia, wife of Augustus, and reported what her husband Fulvius had told her. Whereupon Livia, taking great indignation, sharply