4
Just as fire catches readily in chaff, fibre, and hares’ fur, but goes out rather quickly, unless it gets hold of some other thing that can retain it and feed it, so the keen love between newly married people that blazes up fiercely as the result of physical attractiveness must not be regarded as enduring or constant, unless, by being centred about character and by gaining a hold upon the rational faculties, it attains a state of vitality.
5
Fishing with poison is a quick way to catch fish and an easy method of taking them, but it makes the fish inedible and bad. In the same way women who artfully employ love-potions and magic spells upon their husbands, and gain the mastery over them through pleasure, find themselves consorts of dull-witted, degenerate fools. The men bewitched by Circe were of no service to her, nor did she make the least use of them after they had been changed into swine and asses, while for Odysseus, who had sense and showed discretion in her company, she had an exceeding great love.
6
Women who prefer to have power over fools rather than to hearken to sensible men, are like persons who prefer to guide the blind on the road rather than to follow persons possessed of knowledge and sight.
