to no purpose to keep her up, or to reclaim her by hard usage.  “Fair means peradventure may do somewhat.” [6203] Obsequio vinces aptius ipse tuo. Men and women are both in a predicament in this behalf, no sooner won, and better pacified. Duci volunt, non cogi:  though she be as arrant a scold as Xanthippe, as cruel as Medea, as clamorous as Hecuba, as lustful as Messalina, by such means (if at all) she may be reformed.  Many patient [6204]Grizels, by their obsequiousness in this kind, have reclaimed their husbands from their wandering lusts.  In Nova Francia and Turkey (as Leah, Rachel, and Sarah did to Abraham and Jacob) they bring their fairest damsels to their husbands’ beds; Livia seconded the lustful appetites of Augustus:  Stratonice, wife to King Diotarus, did not only bring Electra, a fair maid, to her good man’s bed, but brought up the children begot on her, as carefully as if they had been her own.  Tertius Emilius’ wife, Cornelia’s mother, perceiving her husband’s intemperance, rem dissimulavit, made much of the maid, and would take no notice of it.  A new-married man, when a pickthank friend of his, to curry favour, had showed him his wife familiar in private with a young gallant, courting and dallying, &c.  Tush, said he, let him do his worst, I dare trust my wife, though I dare not trust him.  The best remedy then is by fair means; if that will not take place, to dissemble it as I say, or turn it off with a jest:  hear Guexerra’s advice in this case, vel joco excipies, vel silentio eludes; for if you take exceptions at everything your wife doth, Solomon’s wisdom, Hercules’ valour, Homer’s learning, Socrates’ patience, Argus’ vigilance, will not serve turn.  Therefore Minus malum, [6205]a less mischief, Nevisanus holds, dissimulare, to be [6206]_Cunarum emptor_, a buyer of cradles, as the proverb is, than to be too solicitous. [6207]"A good fellow, when his wife was brought to bed before her time, bought half a dozen of cradles beforehand for so many children, as if his wife should continue to bear children every two months.” [6208]Pertinax the Emperor, when one told him a fiddler was too familiar with his empress, made no reckoning of it.  And when that Macedonian Philip was upbraided with his wife’s dishonesty, cum tot victor regnorum ac populorum esset, &c., a conqueror of kingdoms could not tame his wife (for she thrust him out of doors), he made a jest of it. Sapientes portant cornua in pectore, stulti in fronte, saith Nevisanus, wise men bear their horns in their hearts, fools on their foreheads.  Eumenes, king of Pergamus, was at deadly feud with Perseus of Macedonia, insomuch that Perseus hearing of a journey he was to take to Delphos, [6209]set a company of soldiers to intercept him in his passage; they did it accordingly, and as they supposed left him stoned to death.  The news of this fact was brought instantly to Pergamus; Attalus, Eumenes’ brother, proclaimed himself king forthwith,