gle men, tnough they may be many times more charitable, because their means are less exhaust,[1] yet, on the other side, they are more cruel and hardhearted, (good to make severe inquisitors,) because their tenderness is not so oft called upon. Grave natures, led by custom, and therefore constant, are commonly loving husbands; as was said of Ulysses,[2] vetulam suam prætulit immortalitati.[3] Chaste women are often proud and froward, as presuming upon the merit of their chastity. It is one of the best bonds both of chastity and obedience in the wife, if she think her husband wise; which she will never do if she find him jealous. Wives are young men's mistresses; companions for middle age; and old men's nurses. So as a man may have a quarrel,[4] to marry when he will. But yet he was reputed one of the wise men, that made answer to the question when a man should marry?—A young man not yet,
- ↑ Exhaust. Condensed preterit for exhausted. The form is common in the Bible and in Shakspere.
"Our State to be disjoint and out of frame."
Shakspere. Hamlet. i. 2.
- ↑ Ulysses (Greek, Odysseus), in Greek legend a king of Ithaca and one of the heroes of the Trojan war. The Odyssey, an epic poem attributed to Homer, celebrates the adventures of Odysseus during ten years of wandering spent in repeated efforts to return to Ithaca after the close of the Trojan war.
- ↑ He preferred his aged wife to immortality. The goddess Calypso entreated Ulysses to share her immortality, instead of returning to Ithaca. Compare the Advancement of Learning I. viii. 7: "Ulysses, qui vetulam prætulit immortalitati being a figure of those which prefer custom and habit before all excellency." The thought is Plutarch's, Opera Moralia. Gryllus. 1. Plutarch took it from Cicero, De Oratore. I. 44.
- ↑ Quarrel. Cause, reason.
This means, 'May the success of right be as well warranted as our cause is just!'
"and the chance of goodness
Be like our warranted quarrel!"
Shakspere. Macbeth. iv. 3.
