Complete. “Attic Nights,” Book I., Chap. xvii.

XANTIPPE, the wife of Socrates the philosopher, is said to have been very morose and quarrelsome; so that she would, night and day, give unrestrained vent to her passions and female impertinences. Alcibiades, astonished at her intemperance towards her husband, asked Socrates what was the reason he did not turn so morose a woman out of doors. “Because,” replied Socrates, “by enduring such a person at home, I am accustomed and exercised to bear with greater ease the petulance and rudeness of others abroad.” Agreeably to this sentiment, Varro also, in his “Satira Menippea,” which he wrote concerning the duty of a husband, observes, “that the errors of a wife are either to be removed or endured. He who extirpates them makes his wife better; he who endures them improves himself.” These words of Varro, tollere et ferre, are of facetious import; but tollere seems to be used with the meaning of corrigere; for it is evident that Varro thought that the errors of a wife, if they really could not be corrected, ought to be endured, which a man may do without disgrace, for there is an important difference between errors and vices.