Page:The Earliest Lives of Dante (Smith 1901).djvu/30

Rh O the incalculable weariness of having to live and converse, and finally to grow old and die, with so suspicious a creature! I prefer to pass over the new and heavy cares which the unwonted must bear, especially In our city; namely, the provision of clothes, ornaments, and roomfuls of needless trifles, which women make themselves believe are necessary to proper living; the provision of men-servants, maid-servants, nurses, and chambermaids; the furnishing of banquets, gifts, and presents, which must be made to the bride's relatives, since husbands wish that their wives should think they love these persons. Moreover, there are many other things that free men never knew before. And I now come to things that cannot be evaded.

Who doubts that the judgment of the people concerns itself with one's wife, as to whether she be fair or no? And if she be reputed beautiful, who doubts that she straightway will have many admirers, who will importunately besiege her fickle mind, one with his good looks, another with his noble birth, this one with marvelous flattery, that one with presents, and still another with his pleasing ways? What is desired by many is hardly defended from every one, and the purity of women need be overthrown but once to make themselves infamous and their husbands for ever miserable. and if, through the ill-luck of him who leads her home, she be not fair, inasmuch as we frequently see the most beautiful women soon become tiresome, what may we think with regard to these plain women, save that not only they themselves, but every place where they may be found, will be held in hatred by those who must always have them for their own? Hence arises their wrath. Nor is any brute more cruel than an angry woman, nay, nor so cruel. No man can feel safe who commits himself to one who thinks she has reason to be wroth. And they all think that.

What shall I say of their ways? If I were to show how and to how great an extent wives run counter to the peace and repose of men, I should stretch my discourse too far. It therefore suffices to speak of one thing alone, common to