CONJUGAL PRECEPTS.

For one cannot take or put on, except at great expense, the jewels of this or that rich woman, or the silk dresses of this or that foreign woman, but the virtues that adorned Theano,³¹ and Cleobuline, and Gorgo the wife of Leonidas, and Timoclea the sister of Theagenes, and the ancient Claudia,³² and Cornelia the sister of Scipio,³³ and all other such noble and famous women, these one may array oneself in without money and without price, and so adorned lead a happy and famous life. For if Sappho plumed herself so much on the beauty of her lyrical poetry as to write to a certain rich woman, "You shall lie down in your tomb, nor shall there be any remembrance of you, for you have no part in the roses of Pieria," how shall you not have a greater right to plume yourself on having a part not in the roses but in the fruits which the Muses bring, and which they freely bestow on those that admire learning and philosophy?³⁴