Xantippe

“ The man’s large hand rested softly on the raven curls of the youngster as he muttered to himself:
“For her sake I will watch over you, and you shall grow up to be a true man.”
So Xantippe’s life had not been lived in vain, for she had loved and been loved, and her memory was sweet to her lover. Moreover, Gregorio’s dreams of wealth for his son were to find fulfilment, and the sand of the desert, maybe, lies lightly on him. ”

“ Gregorio refused to hear reason, and explained how he begrudged them their wealth and fame. “For these English are a dull people, and we Greeks are greatly superior.”
“I do not agree with you,” Xantippe replied. “I have learned what a man is since I have known him, and I have learned to hate you. You may have more brains—that I know nothing of, nor do I care. He could not behave as you have behaved, nor have sacrificed me as you have sacrificed me. Some of his money comes to you. You want money. ”

“ We have both made sacrifices, great sacrifices.”
“It is odd,” pursued Xantippe, gently, as if speaking to herself, “that you should so flatter yourself. You professed to care for me once; you only regard me now as a slave to earn money for you.”
“It is for our son’s sake.”
“Is it for our son’s sake also that you sit with Madam Marx, that you drink her wine, that you kiss her?”
Gregorio could not answer. He felt it were useless to try and explain, though the reason seemed to him clear enough. ”

“ He was annoyed that a race of people whom he despised should be so merry when he himself had so many troubles to worry him. He would have liked to go into one of the booths where the girls danced, but he had no money, and he cursed at his stupidity in not asking the Marx woman for some. He no longer felt ashamed of himself, for he argued that he was the victim of circumstances. Still he wished Xantippe had not looked out of the window, though of course he could easily explain things to her. And Xantippe was really so angry the night before, explanations were better postponed for a time. ”

“ Xanti, a nick-name of Xantippe, that scold of glorious memory, who never let poor Socrates have one moment's peace of mind; yet with unexampled patience he bore her pestilential tongue. I shall beg the ladies' pardon if I insert a few passages concerning her: and at the same time I assure them it is not to lesson those of the present age, who are possessed of the like laudable talents; for I will confess, that I know three in the city of Dublin, no way inferior to Xantippe, but that they have not as great men to work upon. ”

“ These news will I tell her, and the matter so frame,
That she shall be thine own, master Worldly Shame!
Ha, ha, ha!—
XANTIPPE. Peace, peace, she cometh hereby,
I spoke no word of her, no, not I.
WORLDLY SHAME. O Mistress Xantippe, I can tell you news: [245]
The fair wench, your dear daughter Dalilah,
Is dead of the pox taken at the stews;
And thy son Ismael, that pretty boy,
Whom I dare say you loved very well,
Is hanged in chains, every [246] man can tell.
Every man saith thy daughter was a strong whore,
And thy son a strong thief and a murderer. ”

“ Rows are half the fun of life, and you can't have rows with humble, meek-answering individuals. They turn away our wrath, and that is just what we do not want. We want to let it out. We have worked ourselves up into a state of exhilarating fury, and then just as we are anticipating the enjoyment of a vigorous set-to, they spoil all our plans with their exasperating humility.
Xantippe's life must have been one long misery, tied to that calmly irritating man, Socrates. Fancy a married woman doomed to live on from day to day without one single quarrel with her husband! ”

“ Excuses, in fact, were never wanting to be in public, and occasions unknown to us were clearly afforded men for becoming acquainted with the temper and character of their future spouses, since we find Socrates conversing with men well acquainted with their country’s manners, jocularly feigning to have chosen Xantippe for her fierce, untameable spirit. ”

“ It does not appear that he was observant of those cares which by most men are probably considered as paramount, Xantippe his wife. giving himself but little concern for the support of his children and wife. The good woman Xantippe is, to all appearance, one of those characters who are unfairly judged of by the world. Socrates married her because of her singular conversational powers ”

“ Bookworm, feeling himself too weak for open and honourable warfare, betakes himself to a characteristic revenge, safe, cowardly, professional, honey-sweet; in the most scurrilous Latin he can command (and Latin is said to be rather rich in scurrility) he libels women and marriage, and retails from the inexhaustible stores of his anecdotage how Xantippe emptied the vessels of her wrath upon the sacred head of Socrates. Xantippe is the lay-figure which he kicks and punches in lieu of Mrs. ”

“ Appian, bk. 4.—Plutarch, Brutus.
Xantĭcles, one of the leaders of the 10,000 Greeks, after the battle of Cunaxa.
Xantippe, a daughter of Dorus, who married Pleuron, by whom she had Agenor, &c. Apollodorus, bk. 1, ch. 7.――The wife of Socrates, remarkable for her ill humour and peevish disposition, which are become proverbial. Some suppose that the philosopher was acquainted with her moroseness and insolence before he married her, and that he took her for his wife to try his patience, and inure himself to the malevolent reflections of mankind. ”

“ When Timoleon took Syracuse, Dionysius was about to stab Evander, but Euphrasia, rushing forward, struck the tyrant dead upon the spot.—A. Murphy, The Grecian Daughter (1772) .
The same tale is told-of Xantippê, who preserved the life of her father Cimo'nos in prison. The guard, astonished that the old man held out so long, set a watch and discovered the secret.
There is a dungeon, in whose dim drear light
What do I gaze on!...
An old man, and a female young and fair,
Fresh as a nursing mother, in whose veins
The blood is nectar ... ”

“ Meanwhile, too, Xanthippe's old beau, Gatippus, had married; and from Thessaly came reports of the beautiful vineyard and the many wine-presses he had acquired. So Xanthippe's life became somewhat more than a struggle; it became a martyrdom. And the wrinkles came into Xanthippe's face, and Xanthippe's hair grew gray, and Xanthippe's heart was filled with the bitterness of disappointment. And the years, full of grind and of poverty and of neglect, crept wearily on.
Time is the grim old collector who goes dunning for the abused wife, and Time finally forced a settlement with Socrates. ”

“ Xanthippe was a dutiful daughter; she had been taught to obey her parents; and although her heart inclined to Gatippus, the son of Heliopharnes the plasterer, she smothered all rebellious emotions, and said she would try to do her father's will. Accordingly, therefore, Kimon introduced into his home one evening a certain young Athenian philosopher,—a typical literary Bohemian of that time,—one Socrates, a creature of wondrous wisdom and ready wit.
The appearance of this suitor, presumptive if not apparent, did not particularly please Xanthippe. Socrates was an ill-favored young man. ”

“ To one who said, "Don't you find so-and-so very offensive?" his reply was, "No, for it takes two to make a quarrel." We ought not to object, he used to say, to be subjects for the Comic poets, for if they satirize our faults they will do us good, and if not they do not touch us. When Xanthippe first scolded him and then drenched him with water, his rejoinder was, "Did I not say that Xanthippe's thunder would end in rain?" When Alcibiades declared that the scolding of Xanthippe was intolerable, "Nay, I have got used to it," said he, "as to the continued rattle of a windlass. ”

“ We have a profound sympathy with Xanthippe. If she became a shrew, it was Socrates’s fault. But it does not appear that she ever failed in the great duties of womanhood. And it ill beseems either the man or his apologists to malign a hard-working, much-abused woman whose defects of temper were not congenital, but created and increased by this malicious maieutic philosopher himself. ”

“ After a very little While, in comes Xanthus to Supper, and asks Æsop who That Man was? Why This is the Man, says Æsop, that you sent me for; that is to say a Man that has no Curiosity in him at All. Oh that's very well, says Xanthus, and then told his Wife in her eare, That if she would but be a Loving and Obedient Wife to him, and do as he bad her, he would now save her Longing, for, says he, I have been a Great while Seeking for an Occasion to pick a Quarrell with Æsop, and I have found it at last. After this Whisper, Xanthus takes a Turn in the Parlour, and calls aloud to his Wife. ”

“ This seemed to go beyond a joke, and Xanthus demanded in an angry manner of Aesop, "Did I not tell you to provide the choicest dainties that money could procure?" "And what excels the tongue?" replied Aesop, "It is the channel of learning and philosophy. By it addresses and eulogies are made, and commerce carried on, contracts executed, and marriages consummated. Nothing is equal to the tongue." The company applauded Aesop's wit, and good feeling was restored.
"Well," said Xanthus to the guests, "pray do me the favor of dining with me again to-morrow. ”

“ At any rate, there was a sniff of contempt imparted, as I have said, to the atmosphere I was breathing as Xanthippe answered my question, and the sniff saved me, just as it did in the London hotel, when I complained of the lordly lack of manners on the part of the head waiter. I asserted my independence.
"Don't trouble yourself," I put in. "Of course I shall be interested in anything you may choose to say, but as a gentleman I do not care to put a woman to any inconvenience and I do not press the question." ”

“ Prosperous in a worldly way, Kimon was enabled to give this favorite daughter the best educational advantages; and he was justly proud when at the age of nineteen Xanthippe was graduated from the Minerva Female College with all the highest honors of her class. There was but one thing that cast a shadow upon the old gentleman's happiness, and that was his pain at observing that among all Xanthippe's associates there was one upon whom she bestowed her sweetest smiles; namely, Gatippus, the son of Heliopharnes the plasterer. ”

“ The philosopher, being at a feast, put aside certain delicacies, and said to Æsop, "Carry these to my loving pet;" upon which Æsop gave them to a little dog of which his master was very fond. Xantus, on returning home, did not fail to inquire how his wife liked his present, and as the latter evidently did not understand what he meant, Æsop was sent for to give an explanation. Xantus, who was only too willing to find a pretext for giving his slave a thrashing, asked him whether he had not expressly said, "Carry those sweet things from me to my loving pet?" ”

“ Xanthus told the Gard'ner, that it was below a Philosopher to Busy his head about such Trifles; but says he, If you have a Curiosity to be better Inform'd, you should do well to ask my Slave here, and see what hele say to you. Upon This, the Gard'ner put the Question to Æsop, Who gave him this Answer. The Earth is in the Nature of a Mother to what She brings forth of her Self out of her own Bowels ”

“ Now even when the original utterance of Xanthippus got abroad, it had caused considerable rumour and more or less sanguine talk among the populace, but on his leading the army out and drawing it up in good order before the city and even beginning to manoeuvre some portions of it correctly and give the word of command in the orthodox military terms, the contrast to the incompetency of the former generals was so striking that the soldiery expressed their approval by cheers and were eager to engage the enemy, feeling sure that if Xanthippus was in command no disaster could befall them. ”

“ What have Wee to do to Quench other Peoples Fires? And I le e'en keep my selfe Clear of Other Peoples Matters; Only he took Xanthus by the Hand indeed, and told him if he would but Stay a Little, he'd go fetch his own Wife too, and so they might take the Lash by Turns. In one word, Xanthus milled his Aim at last; and though he was troubled at the Miscarriage, he could not but Laugh yet at the Simplicity of the Man, and Confess, that Æsop was in the Right, in bringing a Person to him that had no Curiosity at all. ”

“ I repeated, somewhat sheepishly, she took it so coolly.
“Very well,” said Xanthippe, with a note of amusement in her manipulation of the keys. “If those are your subjects, let us discuss them. I am surprised to find an able-bodied man like yourself bothering with such problems, but I'll help you out of your difficulties if I can. No needy man shall ever say that I ignored his cry for help. What do you want to know about baby-food?”
This turning of the tables nonplussed me, and I didn't really know what to say, and so wisely said nothing, and the machine grew sharp in its clicking. ”

“ He asked for time, and had recourse to his usual oracle, Æsop. The latter advised him to produce him in public, since, if he succeeded well, the philosopher would have the honour, and if he failed, he, Æsop, would alone bear the blame. Xantus approved of this course, and presented him before the chief assembly of the citizens. As soon as the Phrygian appeared, every one burst into a fit of laughter; no one supposed that anything sensible could come from the mouth of one so grotesquely formed. ”