Another, having left her husband a-bed and asleep, went to see her lover before lying down herself. Then asked he her where her husband was, and she did reply, “He is keeping his bed, guarding his cuckoo’s nest for fear another come to lay therein. But ’tis not with his bed, nor his sheets, nor his nest you have to do, but with me, who am come to see you. I have left him there as sentinel, though truly he is but a sleepy one.”
Talking of sentinels, I have heard a tale told of a certain gentleman of consideration, whom I well knew, who one day coming to words with a very honourable lady, whom also I knew, he did ask her, by way of insult, if she had ever gone on pilgrimage to Saint Mathurin.[63] “Oh, yes!” she replied, “but I could never get into the Church, for so full and so well occupied was it with cuckolds, they would never suffer me to enter. And you, who were one of the foremost, were mounted on the steeple, to act sentinel and warn the others.”
I could tell a thousand other such tales, but I should never have done. Yet do I hope to find room for some of them in some corner or other of my book.
10.
Some cuckolds there be which are good-natured and which of their own impulse do invite themselves to this feast of cuckoldry. Thus I have known some who would say to their wives, “Such and such an one is in love with you; I know him well, and he often cometh to visit us, but ’tis for love of you, my pretty. Give him good welcome; he can do us much pleasure, his acquaintance may advantage us greatly.”
Others again will say to their wives’ admirers, “My wife is in love with you, and right fond of you. Come and see her, you will give her pleasure; you can chat and hold discourse together, and pass the time agreeably.” So do they invite folk to feast at their expense. As did the Emperor Hadrian,[64] who being one time in Britain (as we read in his Life), carrying on War there, did receive sundry warnings, how that his wife, the Empress Sabina, was making unbridled love with a number of gallant Roman noblemen. As fate would have it, she had writ and despatched a letter from Rome to a certain young Roman gentleman who was with the Emperor in Britain, complaining that he had forgot her, and took no more account of her, and that it must needs be he had some intrigue in that region and that some affected little wanton had caught him in the lakes of her beauty. This letter fell by chance into the Emperor’s hands; and when the nobleman in question did some days after ask leave of absence under colour of wishing to go to Rome immediately for family affairs of his own, Hadrian said to him in mocking wise, “Well, well! young sir, go there,—and boldly, for the Empress, my wife, is expecting you in all affection.” But the Roman hearing this, and finding the Emperor had discovered his secret and might likely play him some ill turn, started the very next night, without saying by your leave or with your leave, and took refuge in Ireland.
Still he had no need to be greatly afraid for all this. Indeed the Emperor himself would often say, being regaled continually with tales of the extravagant love affairs of his wife, “Why, certainly, were I not Emperor, I should have long ago rid me of my wife; but I desire not to show an evil example.” As much as to say, it matters not to the great to be in this case, so long as they let it not be known publicly. And what a fate for great men,—one which truly some of them have consented to, though not for the same reason! So we see this good Emperor suffering himself complacently to be made cuckold.
Another good Emperor, Marcus Aurelius,[65] who had as wife Faustina, a downright harlot, replied on being advised to put her away, “If we give her up, we are bound also to give up her dowry, which is the Empire.” And who would not be cuckold like him for such a prize, or even a less one?
His son, Antonius Verus, surnamed Commodus, though he grew up very cruel, yet held the like language to such as advised him to have the said Faustina, his mother, put to death. So madly in love was she and so hot after a gladiator that she could never be cured of the fierce malady, till at last they bethought them to kill the rascally gladiator and make her drink his blood.