§8. To
Nicobulus.
(See the introduction to the first letter to Sophronius
above.)
Ep. XII. (About a.d. 365).
You joke me about Alypiana as being little and
unworthy of your size, you tall and immense and monstrous fellow both
in form and strength. For now I understand that soul is a matter
of measure, and virtue of weight, and that rocks are more valuable than
pearls, and crows more respectable than nightingales. Well, well!
rejoice in your bigness and your cubits, and be in no respect inferior
to the famed sons of Aloeus.4777
| 4777 Otus and Ephialtes,
the two Homeric Giants, who piled Pelion on Ossa and Olympus on Pelion
in the vain endeavour to reach heaven and dethrone Zeus, but were slain
by Apollo. (See Hom., Odyss., xi., 305–320.) |
You
ride a
horse, and shake a
spear, and concern yourself with
wild beasts.
But she has no such
work; and no great
strength is needed to carry a
comb,
4778
| 4778 An instrument used in
weaving to make the web firm and close. |
or to handle a distaff, or to sit by a loom,
“For such is the
glory of
woman.”
4779
| 4779 From his own Poem
against women who take too much pains about adorning themselves (i.,
267). |
And if you add this, that she has
become
fixed to the ground on account of prayer, and by the great
movement of her
mind has constant
communion with
God, what is there
here to
boast of in your bigness or the stature of your body?
Take heed to seasonable
silence: listen to her voice: mark
her unadornment, her womanly virility, her usefulness at
home, her love
of her husband. Then you will say with the Laconian, that verily
soul is not a subject for measure, and the outer must look to the inner
man. If you look at the things in this way you will leave off
joking and deriding her as little, and you will congratulate yourself
on your marriage.
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