“Methinks you narrate too briefly these virtuous deeds done by women; for these enemies of ours, although having heard and read them, yet pretend not to know them and fain would have the memory of them lost: but if you will let us women hear them, we at least shall deem ourselves honoured by them.” 24.—Then the Magnifico Giuliano replied: “So be it. I wish to tell you now of one who did what I think my lord Gaspar himself will admit very few men do;” and he began: “In Massilia[356] there was once a custom that is believed to have been brought from Greece, which was that they publicly[357] kept a poison compounded of hemlock, and allowed anyone to take it who proved to the Senate that he ought to lay down his life because of any trouble that he found therein, or for other just cause, to the end that whoever had suffered a too hostile fortune or had enjoyed a too prosperous fortune, should not drag on the one or change the other. Now Sextus Pompey, finding himself—”[358] Here Frisio, not waiting for the Magnifico Giuliano to go on, said: “Methinks this is the beginning of a long story.” Then the Magnifico Giuliano turned to madonna Margarita laughing, and said: “You see that Frisio will not let me speak. I wished to tell you now about a woman who, having shown to the Senate that she had good reason to die, cheerfully and fearlessly took the poison in Sextus Pompey’s presence, with such steadfastness of spirit and with such affectionate and thoughtful remembrances to her family, that Pompey and all the others who saw such wisdom and confidence on a woman’s part in the dread hour of death, were lost in wonderment and tears.” 25.—Then my lord Gaspar said, laughing: “I too remember having read a speech in which an unhappy husband asks leave of the Senate to die, and proves that he has just cause for it in that he cannot endure the continual annoyance of his wife’s chatter, and prefers to drink the poison, which you say was publicly kept for such purposes, than his wife’s words.” The Magnifico Giuliano replied: “How many poor women would have just cause for asking leave to die because they cannot endure, I will not say the evil words, but the very evil deeds of their husbands! I know several such, who suffer in this world the pains that are said to be in hell.” “Do you not believe,” replied my lord Gaspar, “that there are also many husbands who have such torment of their wives that they hourly wish for death?” “And what pain,” said the Magnifico, “can wives give their husbands that is as incurable as are those that husbands give their wives?—who if not for love, at least for fear, are submissive to their husbands.” “Certain it is,” said my lord Gaspar, “that the little good they sometimes do proceeds from fear, since there are few in the world who in their secret hearts do not hate their husbands.”