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550 MONTAIGNE'S ESSAYES
And finding him somewhat nice and backeward to
effect so rode an enterprise: ' Thinke not my deare
friend (quoth shee) but that the sorrowes and griefe I
see thee feel, touch me as neere and more, if more
may be, as thy selfe, and that to be rid of them I will
applie the same remedie to my selfe which I prescribe
to thee. I will accompany thee in thy cure as I have
done in thy sickness : remoove all feare, and assure
thy selfe we shall have pleasure in this passage, which
shall deliver us from all torments, for we will happily
goe together.' That said, and having cheared up hir
husbands courage, she determined they should both
headlong throw themselves into the sea from out a
window of their house that overlooked the same : and
to maintaine this loyall, vehement and never to be
severed affection to the end, wherewith shee had during
his life embraced him, she would also have him die in
hir armes: and fearing they might faile her, and
through the fall or feare or apprehension her hold-fast
might be loosed, shee caused herselte to be fast bound
unto him by the middle : and thus for the ease of her
husbands life she was contented to foregoe her owne.
She was but of meane place and low fortune, and
amidde such condition of people it is not so strange to
see some parts of rare vertue and exemplar goodnesse.
extrema per illos
Iustitia excedens terris vestgia fecit. ¹
Justice departing from the earth did take
Of them her leave, through them last passage make.
The other two are noble and rich; where examples
of vertue are rarely lodged. Arria, wife unto Oecinna
Paetus, a man that had been consul, was mother of
another Arria, wife to Thrasea Paetus, whose vertue
was so highly renowned during the time of Nero; and
by meane of his sonne-in-law, grandmother to Fannia.
For the resemblance of these mens and womens names
and fortunes hath made diverse to mistake them. This
first Arria, her husband Cecinna Paetus having been
¹ VIRG. Geor. 1. ii. 473.