the dice the portrait of a fair and honourable lady. But the Lord did soon set the matter in a better light, declaring how that in his hazard, he had kept back the parchment inside, and had staked only the box encasing the same, which was of gold and enriched with precious stones. Myself have many a time heard the tale discussed between the lady and the said Lord in right merry wise, and have whiles laughed my fill thereat.
Hereanent will I say one thing: to wit, that there be ladies,—and myself have known sundry such,—which in their loves do prefer to be defied, threatened, and eke bullied; and a man will in this fashion have his way with them better far than by gentle dealings and complacencies. Just as with fortresses, some be taken by sheer force of arms, others by gentler means. Yet will no women endure to be reviled and cried out upon as whores; for such words be more offensive to them than the things they do represent.
Sulla would never forgive the city of Athens, nor refrain from the utter overthrow of the same root and branch, not by reason of the obstinacy of its defence against him, but solely because from the top of the walls thereof the citizens had foully abused his wife Metella and touched her honour to the quick.
In certain quarters, the which I will not name, the soldiery in skirmishes and sieges of fortified places were used, the one side against the other, to cast reproach upon the virtue of two of their sovereign Princesses, going so far as to cry forth one to the other: "Your Princess doth play ninepins fine and well!"—"And yours is downright good at a main too!" By dint of these aspersions and bywords were the said Princesses cause of rousing
[128]
