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Shakespeare’s Dysfunctional FamiliesWeek 2

The ‘Traditional’ Family In what is perhaps the most widely-referenced publication on the family

since the 1970s Lawrence Stone asserts that “before 1500 the English family, both aristocratic and middle class, had little in common with the "nuclear family" of contemporary England and America;

The family was a large, loose network based on kinship relationships. In other words, kinship ties and economic interest, rather than love or friendship, determined who lived together;

‘Families’ were large; a household might involve 25-30 members. Many of the young people would be distant relatives, employed as maids-in-waiting or even as servants; conversely, the parents' own children probably lived in another household…”.1

1 Lawrence Stone, The family, sex and marriage in England, 1500-1800 (London: Weidenfeld and Nicolson, 1977.

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Of course, many of Shakespeare’s plays are set in the historical past considerably prior to Stone’s reference to “before 1500” and they are typically located in the palaces or ‘Great Houses’ of Stone’s “aristocratic” families.

As for his “large families”, we should recall that King Lear’s cherished “hundred knights” constitute a part of Lear’s palace household;

In Romeo and Juliet the opening scene involves a street fight between the servants of the Montague and Capulet families;

In Much Ado Beatrice is clearly one of the “distant relatives” or poor relations to whom Stone alludes who has been taken into her uncle Leonato’s household;

Elsewhere there are suggestions of larger households ‘offstage’: In Twelfth Night Olivia’s Steward, Malvolio, Olivia’s ‘gentlewoman’, Maria, and her Clown, Feste, are merely the visible on-stage household members while Olivia instructs “some of my people” to attend to the apparently deranged steward.

Surprisingly, perhaps, Shakespeare uses the word ‘family’ on only seven occasions in his plays and poems;

In this respect Shakespeare’s usage – which sometimes implies the obliteration of an entire family line including past and even future generations – is perhaps even more all-embracing than Stone’s “kinship relationships” which seems limited to current living members.

1 Henry V[II, 2]

Henry V O, how hast thou with 'jealousy infectedThe sweetness of affiance! Show men dutiful?Why, so didst thou: seem they grave and learned?Why, so didst thou: come they of noble family?2

Why, so didst thou: seem they religious?Why, so didst thou: or are they spare in diet,Free from gross passion or of mirth or anger,Constant in spirit, not swerving with the blood,Garnish'd and deck'd in modest complement,Not working with the eye without the ear,And but in purged judgment trusting neither?

2 Henry VI, Part III

Lord Clifford Patience is for poltroons, such as he:He durst not sit there, had your father lived.My gracious lord, here in the parliament

2 The OED gives the earlies usage of ‘family’ as 1388.

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[I, 1] Let us assail the family  of York.

3 Othello[I, 1]

Roderigo Signior, is all your family within?3

4 Rape of Lucrece

… She, first taking an oath of them for herrevenge, revealed the actor, and whole manner of his dealing, and withal suddenly stabbed herself. Which done, with one consent they all vowed to root out the whole hated family of the Tarquins …

[The Argument]

5 Titus Andronicus[I, 1]

Saturninus Titus Andronicus, for thy favors doneTo us in our election this day,I give thee thanks in part of thy deserts,And will with deeds requite thy gentleness:And, for an onset, Titus, to advanceThy name and honourable family,Lavinia will I make my empress,Rome's royal mistress, mistress of my heart,And in the sacred Pantheon her espouse:Tell me, Andronicus, doth this motion please thee?

6 Titus Andronicus[I, 1]

Titus Andronicus

No, foolish tribune, no; no son of mine,Nor thou, nor these, confederates in the deedThat hath dishonour'd all our family;Unworthy brother, and unworthy sons!

7 Titus Andronicus[I, 1]

Tamora Dissemble all your griefs and discontents:You are but newly planted in your throne;Lest, then, the people, and patricians too,Upon a just survey, take Titus' part,And so supplant you for ingratitude,Which Rome reputes to be a heinous sin,Yield at entreats; and then let me alone:I'll find a day to massacre them allAnd raze their faction and their family,The cruel father and his traitorous sons,To whom I sued for my dear son's life,And make them know what 'tis to let a queenKneel in the streets and beg for grace in vain.

Towards a Definition

3 ‘Family’ here seems to be limited to the immediate household.

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By the late sixteenth century and early seventeenth century the concept of ‘family’ had evolved:

In brief… The household rather than the individual was the primary unit of

society; The household was represented as a microcosm of good

government and the basis of all order; It was organised along hierarchical principles; Sir Thomas Smith’s discussion of the household (below) is one

strand in his description of the workings of English government:

The common-vvelth of England and the maner of gouernment thereof. Compiled by the honorable Sir Thomas Smith, Knight, Doctor of both lawes, and one of the principall secretaries… [1589], pp. 12-13.4

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However: Stone’s opinion is opposed by some contemporary academic thinking:

1. Family not considered a wholly private domain but was analogous to the commonwealth: [commonwealth, n. 2. The whole body of people constituting a nation or state, the body politic; a state, an independent community (OED)];

2. Large extended families were uncommon; it is not the case that the nuclear family was a recent invention. The household was ideally built around a married couple, their offspring and any servants, and so it rarely accommodated more than two generations;

3. The ‘household’ unit was unstable/fluid and liable to frequent change;

4. Remarriage was common: Much parenting was performed by single parents, step-parents and surrogates, creating shifting and complex webs of relationships.

4 Sir Thomas Smith (1513 –1577) was an English scholar, parliamentarian and diplomat.

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Some questions to be addressed:

(i) Was marriage a battleground between the sexes…? Was it predicated on oppressive subordination for women – or did it entail a degree of parity or even rough and ready equality?

(ii) Was marriage acquisitive or affective…?

The ‘Ideal’ Family.5

It was a popular fiction in the late twentieth century that the ‘typical’ family consisted of a husband, a wife and 2.4 children. No one could ever produce an actual family with 2.4 children, of course, though a popular TV sitcom of the period claimed that the 0.4 was represented by the husband who had infantile tendencies.

The stereotypical family of the late sixteenth century was probably a myth but I would like to explore how it was imagined in terms of ‘official’ writings of the time if only to measure Shakespeare’s representation of family within the context of a perceived model.

The Family was idealised in official publications as the fount of stability

and was often imagined as a miniature kingdom in its own right – it was the subject of a great deal of moralising, especially in religious discourse which promoted the ‘good government’ of households as a key source and sign of godliness:6

5 See https://blog.ons.gov.uk/2019/08/02/whatever-happened-to-2-point-4-children/ .6 The woodcut (above) is said to depict “a Puritan family(?): the father is teaching his family to sing Psalms rather than 'vayne and tryflying ballades'”. Dated 16th Century. (Photo by: Universal History Archive/Universal Images Group via Getty Images).

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The Books of Homilies (1547,7 1562, and 1571) are three books of thirty-three sermons developing the reformed doctrines of the Church of England in greater depth and detail than in the Thirty-Nine Articles of Religion.8

The Title Page (below) of the 1547 edition reads: Certayne sermons or homilies appoynted by the kynges Maiestie,9 to be declared and redde, by all persones, vycars, or curates, euery So[n]day in their churches, where they haue cure.

ALmighty GOD hath created and appointed all things in heauen, earth, and waters, in a most excellent and perfect order. In Heauen, hee hath appointed distinct and hee hath assigned and appointed Kings, Princes, with other gouernours vnder them, in all good and necessary order. The water aboue is kept, and rayneth downe in due time and season. The Sun, Moone, Starres, Rainebow, Thunder, Lightning, Clouds, and all Birdes of 7 Mainly written by Thomas Cranmer and published in the reign of Edward VI.8 The Thirty-nine Articles of Religion are the historically defining statements of doctrines and practices of the Church of England with respect to the controversies of the English Reformation. The Thirty-nine Articles form part of the Book of Common Prayer used by the Church of England. They were written and replaced over a period of 30 years as the doctrinal and political situation changed from the excommunication of Henry VIII in 1533, to the excommunication of Elizabeth I in 1570.  The Thirty-nine Articles were a modification of the Forty-two Articles, written by Archbishop Thomas Cranmer in 1553 “for the avoiding of controversy in opinions.”9 Edward VI.

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the ayre, doe keepe their order. The Earth, Trees, Seedes, Plants, Hearbes, Corne, Grasse, and all maner of Beasts keepe themselues in order: all the parts of the whole yeare, as Winter, Summer, Moneths, Nights and Dayes, continue in their order: all kindes of Fishes in the Sea, Riuers, and Waters, with all Fountaines, Springs, yea, the Seas themselues keepe their comely course and order: and man himselfe also hath

all his parts both within and without, as soule, heart, minde, memory, vnderstanding, reason, speech, with all and singular corporall members of his body in a uerall orders and states of Archangels and Angels. In body in a profitable, necessarie, and pleasant order: euery degree of people in their voca

[New Page]

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tion, calling and office, hath appointed to them their duty and order: some are in high degree, some in low, some Kings and Princes, some inferiours and subiects, Priests, and lay men, masters and seruants, fathers, and

children, husbands and wiues, rich and poore, and euery one haue neede of other, so that in all things is to bee lauded and praised the goodly order of GOD, without the which no house, no Citie, no Commonwealth can continue and endure, or last. For where there is no right order, there reigneth all abuse, carnall liberty, enormitie, sinne, and Babylonicall confusion. Take away Kings Princes, Rulers, Magistrates, Iudges, and such estates of GODS order, no man shall ride or goe by the high way vnrobbed, no man shall sleepe in his

owne house or bedde vnkilled, no man shall keepe his wife, children, and possession in quietnesse, all things shall bee common, and there must needes follow all mischiefe, and vtter destruction both of soules, bodies, goodes, and common wealthes. But blessed bee GOD, that wee in this Realme of England, feele not the horrible calamities, miseries, and wretchednesse, which all they vndoubtedly feele and suffer, that lacke this godly order…

Coriolanus

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The Roman citizens are in rebellion because of food shortages and complain that the aristocratic patricians hoard grain in order to exploit the shortage and profiteer for their own enrichment.

Menenius is himself a patrician and seeks to explain and justify the patricians’ actions to the citizens:

Act 1 Scene 1Menenius Agrippa. There was a time when all the body's membersRebell'd against the belly, thus accused it:That only like a gulf it did remainI' the midst o' the body, idle and unactive,Still cupboarding the viand, never bearingLike labour with the rest, where the other instrumentsDid see and hear, devise, instruct, walk, feel,And, mutually participate, did ministerUnto the appetite and affection commonOf the whole body…

Your most grave belly was deliberate,Not rash like his accusers, and thus answer'd:'True is it, my incorporate friends,' quoth he,'That I receive the general food at first,Which you do live upon; and fit it is,Because I am the store-house and the shopOf the whole body: but, if you do remember,I send it through the rivers of your blood,Even to the court, the heart, to the seat o' the brain;And, through the cranks and offices of man,The strongest nerves and small inferior veinsFrom me receive that natural competencyWhereby they live: and though that all at once,You, my good friends,'—this says the belly, mark me – 

'Though all at once cannotSee what I do deliver out to each,Yet I can make my audit up, that allFrom me do back receive the flour of all,And leave me but the bran.'

The senators of Rome are this good belly,And you the mutinous members; for examineTheir counsels and their cares, digest things rightlyTouching the weal o' the common, you shall findNo public benefit which you receiveBut it proceeds or comes from them to youAnd no way from yourselves. 

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Troilus and CressidaAct 1 SCENE 3. The Grecian camp. Before Agamemnon's tent.

ULYSSES. Degree being vizarded,The unworthiest shows as fairly in the mask.The heavens themselves, the planets and this centreObserve degree, priority and place,Insisture,10 course, proportion, season, form,Office and custom, in all line of order;And therefore is the glorious planet SolIn noble eminence enthroned and spheredAmidst the other; whose medicinable eyeCorrects the ill aspects of planets evil,And posts, like the commandment of a king,Sans cheque to good and bad: but when the planetsIn evil mixture to disorder wander,What plagues and what portents! what mutiny!What raging of the sea! shaking of earth!Commotion in the winds! frights, changes, horrors,Divert and crack, rend and deracinateThe unity and married calm of statesQuite from their fixure! O, when degree is shaked,Which is the ladder to all high designs,Then enterprise is sick! How could communities,Degrees in schools and brotherhoods in cities,Peaceful commerce from dividable shores,The primogenitive and due of birth,Prerogative of age, crowns, sceptres, laurels,But by degree, stand in authentic place?Take but degree away, untune that string,And, hark, what discord follows! each thing meetsIn mere oppugnancy:11 …

The form of ‘good government’ required to guard against such a nightmarish scenario, both within individual households and the wider polity, was ‘patriarchal’ in character:12

This system justified the authority wielded both by kings over their subjects and by male household heads over their families;

10 insisture, n. Obsolete. rare—1. A word of obscure use in Shakespeare: taken variously in the sense of ‘persistency, constancy’ (Schmidt), ‘regularity, or perhaps station’ (Nares); perhaps = ‘steady continuance’ in their path [OED].

11 oppugnancy, n. Now rare. The quality or state of being oppugnant; the fact or action of oppugning; opposition; antagonism; conflict. [OED: Shakespeare’s use in T&C is the earliest recorded example of the word.]12 patriarchal: literally ‘rule by fathers’.

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Divine authority derived from the power first conferred by God on Adam, the rights of fathers (and kings) to rule were deemed natural and therefore incontestable even if exercised unjustly;

HOWEVER, advice on household government featured extensive warnings against tyrannical abuse as well as guarding against unruliness by wives, children and servants;

Of the State of Matrimonie (Second Book of Homilies): exhorted wives to ‘performe subjection’ by obeying their husbands: the good wife was ‘ready at hand at her husbands commandement, when she will apply her selfe to his wyl, when shee endevoureth her self to seeke his contentation, and to doe him pleasure’.

[p. 482]

The Submissive wifeOthello: Act 3 Scene 3Emilia. I am glad I have found this napkin:This was her first remembrance from the Moor:My wayward husband hath a hundred timesWoo'd me to steal it; but she so loves the token,For he conjured her she should ever keep it,That she reserves it evermore about herTo kiss and talk to. I'll have the work ta'en out,And give't Iago: what he will do with itHeaven knows, not I;I nothing but to please his fantasy.

[Re-enter Iago]

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Iago. How now! what do you here alone?

Emilia. Do not you chide; I have a thing for you.

Iago. A thing for me? it is a common thing—

Emilia. Ha!

Iago. To have a foolish wife.

Emilia. O, is that all? What will you give me nowFor the same handkerchief?

Iago. What handkerchief?

Emilia. What handkerchief?Why, that the Moor first gave to Desdemona;That which so often you did bid me steal.

Iago. Hast stol'n it from her?

Emilia. No, 'faith; she let it drop by negligence.And, to the advantage, I, being here, took't up.Look, here it is.

Iago. A good wench; give it me.

Emilia. What will you do with 't, that you have beenso earnestTo have me filch it?

Iago. [Snatching it] Why, what's that to you?

Emilia. If it be not for some purpose of import,Give't me again: poor lady, she'll run madWhen she shall lack it.

Iago. Be not acknown on 't; I have use for it.Go, leave me.[Exit EMILIA]

Act 3 Scene 4EMILIA .

'Tis not a year or two shows us a man:They are all but stomachs, and we all but food;To eat us hungerly, and when they are full,They belch us.

Act 5 Scene 2EMILIA. Villany, villany, villany!I think upon't, I think: I smell't: O villany!—I thought so then:—I'll kill myself for grief:—O villany, villany!

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Iago. What, are you mad? I charge you, get you home.

Emilia. Good gentlemen, let me have leave to speak:'Tis proper I obey him, but not now.Perchance, Iago, I will ne'er go home…

Husbands who believed it was “a mans part to fume in anger, to fight with fist and staffe” would be rewarded with further discord; instead, the husband should aim to be “the leader and authour of love, in cherishing and increasing concord” by exercising his authority in moderation.

According to Sir Thomas Smith, this resulted in an extremely delicate balance of power:

God hath given to the man greater wit,13 bigger strength, and more courage to compell the woman to obey by reason or force, and to the woman bewtie, faire countenaunce, and sweete wordes to make the man to obey her againe for love. Thus ech obeyeth and commaundeth other, and they two togeather rule the house.14

The DebateThe Comedy of Errors: - The ‘official’ versus the ‘progressive’…?13 wit, n. 2 a. The faculty of thinking and reasoning in general; mental capacity, understanding, intellect, reason. archaic (now esp. in the wit of man = human understanding).14 Smith, The common-vvelth of England and the maner of gouernment thereof…

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Adriana is the wife of Antipholus and Luciana her unmarried sister living in the same household:

Act 1 SCENE I. The house of ANTIPHOLUS of Ephesus.

Enter ADRIANA and LUCIANA

ADRIANA

Neither my husband nor the slave return'd,That in such haste I sent to seek his master!Sure, Luciana, it is two o'clock.

LUCIANA

Perhaps some merchant hath invited him,And from the mart he's somewhere gone to dinner.Good sister, let us dine and never fret:A man is master of his liberty:Time is their master, and, when they see time,They'll go or come: if so, be patient, sister.

ADRIANA

Why should their liberty than ours be more?

LUCIANA

Because their business still lies out o' door.

ADRIANA

Look, when I serve him so, he takes it ill.

LUCIANA

O, know he is the bridle of your will.

ADRIANA

There's none but asses will be bridled so.

LUCIANA

Why, headstrong liberty is lash'd with woe.There's nothing situate under heaven's eyeBut hath his bound, in earth, in sea, in sky:The beasts, the fishes, and the winged fowls,Are their males' subjects and at their controls:Men, more divine, the masters of all these,Lords of the wide world and wild watery seas,Indued with intellectual sense and souls,Of more pre-eminence than fish and fowls,Are masters to their females, and their lords:Then let your will attend on their accords.

ADRIANA

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This servitude makes you to keep unwed.

LUCIANA

Not this, but troubles of the marriage-bed.

ADRIANA

But, were you wedded, you would bear some sway.

LUCIANA

Ere I learn love, I'll practise to obey.

ADRIANA

How if your husband start some other where?

LUCIANA

Till he come home again, I would forbear.

ADRIANA

Patience unmoved! no marvel though she pause;They can be meek that have no other cause.A wretched soul, bruised with adversity,We bid be quiet when we hear it cry;But were we burdened with like weight of pain,As much or more would we ourselves complain:So thou, that hast no unkind mate to grieve thee,With urging helpless patience wouldst relieve me,But, if thou live to see like right bereft,This fool-begg'd patience in thee will be left.

LUCIANA

Well, I will marry one day, but to try….

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Patriarchal privilege was also enshrined in the common-law doctrine of coverture, which merged the legal identity of married women with that of their husbands, endowing the latter with authority for both spouses and extensive property rights.

Coverture arises from the legal fiction that a husband and wife are one person.

Patriarchal tenor of marital relations was further tempered by the acknowledgement that wives shared in the authority accorded to parents and to governors of servants. [The fifth commandment, ‘honour thy father and mother’, was a frequently cited tenet that extended the imperative of a child’s deference to both parents.] Children were expected to comply with both parents’ wishes and to express obedience with formal terms of address and subservient

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gestures such as serving food at the table and kneeling for a blessing.

Parenthood was a source of pride and honour for mothers and fathers alike:

Not least in the writings of men, motherhood was idealised as the embodiment of womanhood, [and selflessness in childbearing and child-rearing was eulogised as a primary source of female credit];

The Trevelyon Miscellany (1608) [Folger MS V.b.232.] The ideal middling wife and husband stand side by side in the image accompanying the 25th chapter of Ecclesiastics,15 which warns the reader about the dangers of a wicked wife. Ultimately, the virtue of a wife was a direct reflection of her husband and her household, and

15 See Ecclesiasticus Chapter 25 (Original 1611 KJV Bible) on web site.

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that virtue was determined by her actions and dedication in housewifery as much as piety and spirituality.16

Marriage as a PartnershipJulius Caesar

Act 2 Scene 1Enter PORTIA

Portia. Brutus, my lord!

Brutus. Portia, what mean you? wherefore rise you now?It is not for your health thus to commitYour weak condition to the raw cold morning.

Portia. Nor for yours neither. You've ungently, Brutus,Stole from my bed: and yesternight, at supper,You suddenly arose, and walk'd about,Musing and sighing, with your arms across,And when I ask'd you what the matter was,You stared upon me with ungentle looks;I urged you further; then you scratch'd your head,And too impatiently stamp'd with your foot;Yet I insisted, yet you answer'd not,But, with an angry wafture of your hand,Gave sign for me to leave you: so I did;Fearing to strengthen that impatienceWhich seem'd too much enkindled, and withalHoping it was but an effect of humour,Which sometime hath his hour with every man.It will not let you eat, nor talk, nor sleep,And could it work so much upon your shapeAs it hath much prevail'd on your condition,I should not know you, Brutus. Dear my lord,Make me acquainted with your cause of grief.

Brutus. I am not well in health, and that is all.

Portia. Brutus is wise, and, were he not in health,He would embrace the means to come by it.

Brutus. Why, so I do. Good Portia, go to bed.

Portia. Is Brutus sick? and is it physicalTo walk unbraced and suck up the humoursOf the dank morning? What, is Brutus sick,

16 The Trevelyon Miscellany of 1608, compiled by Thomas Trevelyon in London in 1608, is an illustrated manuscript miscellany containing handwritten notes and drawings (many hand-colored) on historical, religious, social and practical themes, adapted from a variety of sources, including the Bible and ancient and contemporary English writers.

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And will he steal out of his wholesome bed,To dare the vile contagion of the nightAnd tempt the rheumy and unpurged airTo add unto his sickness? No, my Brutus;You have some sick offence within your mind,Which, by the right and virtue of my place,I ought to know of: and, upon my knees,I charm you, by my once-commended beauty,By all your vows of love and that great vowWhich did incorporate and make us one,That you unfold to me, yourself, your half,Why you are heavy, and what men to-nightHave had to resort to you: for here have beenSome six or seven, who did hide their facesEven from darkness.

Brutus. Kneel not, gentle Portia.

Portia. I should not need, if you were gentle Brutus.Within the bond of marriage, tell me, Brutus,Is it excepted I should know no secretsThat appertain to you? Am I yourselfBut, as it were, in sort or limitation,To keep with you at meals, comfort your bed,And talk to you sometimes? Dwell I but in the suburbsOf your good pleasure? If it be no more,Portia is Brutus' harlot, not his wife.

Brutus. You are my true and honourable wife,As dear to me as are the ruddy dropsThat visit my sad heart

Portia. If this were true, then should I know this secret.I grant I am a woman; but withalA woman that Lord Brutus took to wife:I grant I am a woman; but withalA woman well-reputed, Cato's daughter.Think you I am no stronger than my sex,Being so father'd and so husbanded?Tell me your counsels, I will not disclose 'em:I have made strong proof of my constancy,Giving myself a voluntary woundHere, in the thigh: can I bear that with patience.And not my husband's secrets?

Brutus. O ye gods,Render me worthy of this noble wife![Knocking within]Hark, hark! one knocks: Portia, go in awhile;And by and by thy bosom shall partake

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The secrets of my heart.All my engagements I will construe to thee,All the charactery of my sad brows:Leave me with haste.[Exit PORTIA]

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Soon, however [2.4], Portia’s resolve weakens. She is beset with anxieties, sending a household servant (Lucius) to run to the Capital to report “if thy lord look well” and is agitated when a Soothsayer tells her that he fears some harm is intended towards Caesar:

Portia. I must go in. Ay me, how weak a thingThe heart of woman is! O Brutus,The heavens speed thee in thine enterprise!Sure, the boy heard me: Brutus hath a suitThat Caesar will not grant. O, I grow faint.Run, Lucius, and commend me to my lord;Say I am merry: come to me again,And bring me word what he doth say to thee.

Exeunt severally

From Plutarch’s ‘Life of Brutus’ – [Sir Thomas North’s Translation.17]

His wife Porcia (as we have told you before) was the daughter of Cato,18 whom Brutus married being his cousin …

The courage of Porcia.

This young lady, being excellently well seen 46 in philosophy, loving her husband well, and being of a noble courage, as she was also wise: because she would not ask her husband what he ailed before she had made some proof by 47 her self: she took a little razor, such as barbers occupy 48 to pare men's nails, and, causing her maids and women to go out of her chamber, gave herself a great gash withal in her thigh, that she was straight all of a gore blood 49: and incontinently 50 after a vehement fever took her, by reason of the pain of her wound. 

17 North’s translation that was the principal source of all of Shakespeare Roman plays.18 Cato the Younger (95-46 BCE in Latin, Cato Uticensis and also known as Marcus Porcius Cato) was a pivotal figure in Rome during the first century B.C. A defender of the Roman Republic, he forcefully opposed Julius Caesar and was known as the highly moral, incorruptible, inflexible supporter of the Optimates. When it became clear at the Battle at Thapsus that Julius Caesar would be the political leader of Rome, Cato chose the philosophically accepted way out, suicide.

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Then perceiving her husband was marvellously out of quiet, and that he could take no rest, even in her greatest pain of all she spake in this sort unto him: "I being, O Brutus," said she "the daughter of Cato, was married unto thee; not to be thy bed-fellow and companion in bed and at board only, like a harlot, but to be partaker also with thee of thy good and evil fortune. Now for thyself, I can find no cause of fault in thee touching our match: but for my part, how may I shew my duty towards thee and how much I would do for thy sake, if I cannot constantly 51 bear a secret mischance or grief with thee, which requireth secrecy and fidelity? I confess that a woman's wit commonly is too weak to keep a secret safely: but yet, Brutus, good education and the company of virtuous men have some power to reform the defect of nature. And for myself, I have this benefit moreover, that I am the daughter of Cato, and wife of Brutus. This notwithstanding, I did not trust to any of these things before, until that now I have found by experience that no pain or grief whatsoever can overcome me. "With those words she shewed him her wound on her thigh, and told him what she had done to prove herself. Brutus was amazed to hear what she said unto him, and lifting up his hands to heaven, he besought the gods to give him the grace he might bring his enterprise to so good pass 52, that he might be found a husband worthy of so noble a wife as Porcia: so he then did comfort her the best he could.

Great difference between a wife and a harlot. Porcia's words unto her husband Brutus.

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