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284 ESSAYS OF MONTAIGNE
eagerness that our wives have to keep us from the friendship and good-will of other women, theirs have to an equal degree to obesin this for their husbands. Being more solicitous for their husband’s honour than for any other thing, they seek,
and make it their care to have, as many companions as they can, forasmuch as it is a testimony to the husband’s valour. (¢) Our wives will cry out on this as a miracle: it is not so; it is a properly matrimonial virtue, but of the highest type.
And in the Bible, Leah, Rachel, Sarah, and the wives of Jacob gave their beautiful maidservants to their husbands; ! and Livia seconded the appetites of Augustus, to her own detriment; * and the wife of King Dejotarus, Stratonica, not only lent to her husband for his use a very beautiful young maid in her service, but carefully brought up their children and gave them a helping hand * toward the succession to their father’s estates. (a) And, to the end that it may not be thought that all this is done from simple and slavish compliance with usage, and by the influence of the authority of their ancient customs, without reflection and without judgement, and because their wits are so dull that they can not take any other course, some examples of cheir ability should be brought forward. Besides what I have just quoted from one of their warlike songs, I have another, an amorous one, which begins in this way: “Adder, stay thee; stay thee, adder, to the end that my sister may make, after the pattern of thy markings, the fashion and workmanship of a rich girdle,‘ which I may give to my love; so shall thy beauty and thy grace be for all time more highly esteemed than all other serpents.” This is the first couplet, and it is the refrain of the ballad. Now I have enough knowledge of poetry to form this judgement, that not only is there noth- ing barbaric in this conception, but that it is quite Anacre- ontic. Their language, moreover, is a soft language and has a pleasant sound, and much resembles the Greek in its ter- minations.
1 See St. Augustine, De Civ. Dei, XVI, 15 and 38. Some confusion is created by the fact that Leah and Rachel were “‘the wives of Jacob.”
® See Suetonius, Augustus,
® Leur fit espaule. See Plutarch, Of the virtuous deeds of women.
“ Cordon.