th thee as I have done, with my husband." These answers
made them more careful of her, and to have a more watchful eye to her
proceedings. One day, having said to those who looked to her: "Tis to
much purpose that you take all this pains to prevent me; you may indeed
make me die an ill death, but to keep me from dying is not in your
power"; she in a sudden phrenzy started from a chair whereon she sat, and
with all her force dashed her head against the wall, by which blow being
laid flat in a swoon, and very much wounded, after they had again with
great ado brought her to herself: "I told you," said she, "that if you
refused me some easy way of dying, I should find out another, how painful
soever." The conclusion of so admirable a virtue was this: her husband
Paetus, not having resolution enough of his own to despatch himself, as
he was by the emperor's cruelty enjoined, one day, amongst others, after
having first employed all the reasons and exhortations which she thought
most prevalent to persuade him to it, she snatched the poignard he wore
from his side, and holding it ready in her hand, for the conclusion of
her admonitions; "Do thus, Paetus," said she, and in the same instant
giving herself a mortal stab in the breast, and then drawing it out of
the wound, presented it to him, ending her life with this noble,
generous, and immortal saying, "Paete, non dolet"--having time to
pronounce no more but those three never-to-be-forgotten words: "Paetus,
it is not painful."

"Casta suo gladium cum traderet Arria Paeto,
Quern de visceribus traxerat ipsa suis
Si qua fides, vulnus quod feci non dolet, inquit,
Sed quod to facies, id mihi, Paete, dolet."

["When the chaste Arria gave to Poetus the reeking sword she had
drawn from her breast, 'If you believe me,' she said, 'Paetus, the
wound I have made hurts not, but 'tis that which thou wilt make that
hurts me.'"---Martial, i. 14.]

The action was much more noble in itself, and of a braver sense than the
poet expressed it: for she was so far from being deterred by the thought
of her husband's wound and death and her own, that she had been their
promotress and adviser: but having performed this high and courageous
enterprise for her husband's only convenience, she had even in the last
gasp of her life no other concern but for him, and of dispossessing him
of the fear of dying with her. Paetus pre