Michel de Montaigne

“ Their whimpering is offensive to the living and vain to the dead. We
should willingly give them leave to laugh after we are dead, provided
they will smile upon us whilst we are alive. Is it not enough to make a
man revive in pure spite, that she, who spat in my face whilst I was in
being, shall come to kiss my feet when I am no more? ”

“ By it they rather manifest that they never loved them till
dead: their life is nothing but trouble; their death full of love and
courtesy. As fathers conceal their affection from their children, women,
likewise, conceal theirs from their husbands, to maintain a modest
respect. This mystery is not for my palate; 'tis to much purpose that
they scratch themselves and tear their hair. I whisper in a
waiting-woman's or secretary's ear: "How were they, how did they live
together?" I always have that good saying m my head:
"Jactantius moerent, quae minus dolent." ”

“ Which having said, and roused up her husband's
courage, she resolved that they should throw themselves headlong into the
sea out of a window that overlooked it, and that she might maintain to
the last the loyal and vehement affection wherewith she had embraced him
during his life, she would also have him die in her arms; but lest they
should fail, and should quit their hold in the fall through fear, she
tied herself fast to him by the waist, and so gave up her own life to
procure her husband's repose. This was a woman of mean condition ”

“ They are not by the dozen, as every one knows, and especially in the
duties of marriage, for that is a bargain full of so many nice
circumstances that 'tis hard a woman's will should long endure such a
restraint; men, though their condition be something better under that
tie, have yet enough to do. ”

“ The other two were noble and rich, where examples of virtue are rarely
lodged.
Arria, the wife of Caecina Paetus, a consular person, was the mother of
another Arria, the wife of Thrasea Paetus, he whose virtue was so
renowned in the time of Nero, and by this son-in-law, the grandmother of
Fannia: for the resemblance of the names of these men and women, and
their fortunes, have led to several mistakes. ”

“ This first Arria, her
husband Caecina Paetus, having been taken prisoner by some of the Emperor
Claudius' people, after Scribonianus' defeat, whose party he had embraced
in the war, begged of those who were to carry him prisoner to Rome, that
they would take her into their ship, where she would be of much less
charge and trouble to them than a great many persons they must otherwise
have to attend her husband, and that she alone would undertake to serve
him in his chamber, his kitchen, and all other offices. ”