would still seem to me dearer and more honourable to be called thy strumpet than his empress. He who is rich and powerful is not the better man: that is a matter of fortune, this of merit. And she is venal who marries a rich man sooner than a poor man, and yearns for a husband’s riches rather than himself. Such a woman deserves pay and not affection. She is not seeking the man but his goods, and would wish, if possible, to prostitute herself to one still richer. Aspasia put this clearly when she was trying to effect a reconciliation between Xenophon and his wife: ‘Until you come to think that there is nowhere else a better man or a woman more desirable, you will be continually looking for what you think to be the best, and will wish to be married to the man or woman who is the very best.’ This is indeed a holy, rather than a philosophical sentiment, and wisdom, not philosophy, speaks. This is the holy error and blessed deception between man and wife, when affection perfect and unimpaired keeps marriage inviolate not so much by continency of body as by chastity of mind. But what with other women is an error, is, in my case, the manifest truth: since what they suppose in their husbands, I--and the whole world agrees--know to be in thee. My love for thee is truth, being free from all error. Who among kings or philosophers can vie with your fame? What country, what city does not thirst to see you? Who, I ask, did not hurry to see you appearing in public and crane his neck to catch a last glimpse as you departed? What wife, what maid did not yearn for you absent, and burn when you were present? What queen did not envy me my joys and couch? There were in you two qualities by which you could draw the soul of any woman, the gift of poetry and the gift of singing, gifts which other philosophers have lacked. As a distraction from labour, you composed love-songs both in metre and in rhyme, which for their sweet sentiment and music have been sung and resung and have kept your name in every mouth. Your sweet melodies do not permit even the illiterate to forget you. Because of these gifts women sighed for your love. And, as these songs sung of our loves, they quickly spread my name in many lands, and made me the envy of my sex. What excellence of mind or body did not adorn your youth? No woman, then envious, but now would pity me bereft of such delights. What enemy even would not now be softened by the compassion due me? “I have brought thee evil, thou knowest how innocently. Not the result of the act but the disposition of the doer makes the crime; justice does not consider what happens, but through what intent it happens. My intent towards thee thou only hast proved and alone canst judge. I commit everything to thy weighing and submit to thy decree.