Conjugal Precepts (5-9)

They who bait their hooks with intoxicated drugs with little pains surprise the hungry fish, but then they prove unsavory to the taste and dangerous to eat. Thus women that by the force of charms and philters endeavor to subdue their husbands to the satisfaction of their pleasure become at length the wives of madmen, sots, and fools. For they whom the sorceress Circe had enchanted, being then no better than swine and asses, were no longer able to please or do her service. But she loved Ulysses entirely, whose prudence avoided her venomous intoxications and rendered his conversation highly grateful.

They who rather choose to be the mistresses of senseless fools than the obedient wives of wise and sober husbands are like those people that prefer misguidance of the blind before the conduct of them that can see and know the way.

They will not believe that Pasiphae, the consort of a prince, could ever be enamored of a bull, and yet themselves are so extravagant as to abandon the society of their husbands,—men of wisdom, temperance, and gravity,—and betake themselves to the bestial embraces of those who are given wholly to riot and debauchery as if they were dogs or goats.

Some men, either unable or unwilling to mount themselves into their saddles through infirmity or laziness, teach their horses to fall upon their knees, and in that posture to receive their riders. In like manner there are

We behold the moon then shining with a full and glorious orb, when farthest distant from the sun; but, as she warps back again to meet her illustrious mate, the nearer she makes her approach, the more she is eclipsed until no longer seen. Quite otherwise, a woman ought to display the charms of her virtue and the sweetness of her disposition in her husband’s presence, but in his absence to retire to silence and reservedness at home.