The Game of Chess

... will ... [text faded] ... [whether to proceed] ...?
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[...and she spoke.] She spoke in this way: "By the crime of the king’s son, alas, an enemy has successfully invaded my home. You, Collatinus, must know that the traces of a stranger are in your bed. Yet, while the body was violated against its will, the soul remains innocent; therefore, though I absolve myself of the guilt, I do not free myself from the punishment." original: "a culpa me absolvo a pena tamen non libero"; this famous line is drawn from the historian Livy's account, where Lucretia asserts that while she is not morally responsible for the rape, she must die to ensure no unchaste woman ever uses her as an excuse to live in dishonor. "And let no unchaste woman live by the example of Lucretia; she who might take an example from my fault should not ignore the example of my punishment." And having said this, she drew out a sword she had hidden beneath her robe, raised it, and plunged it into her breast; and so she fell dead.

Then Brutus Lucius Junius Brutus, who would become one of the first consuls of the Roman Republic, having called together her father and brothers, took up the sword that had killed her and swore upon the blood of Lucretia never to rest until the lineage of Tarquin was expelled from Rome, and to never again permit anyone to rule as king in Rome in the future. And so it was done; for he carried the dead body into Rome and stirred up such great rebellion that the king was driven into permanent exile. This occurred during the siege of Ardea and the events at Gabii. As for Sextus Sextus Tarquinius, the prince who raped Lucretia, fearing the avenger, he was eventually slain by the sword.

A woman should also possess mature character, so that within her dwells all love and modesty modesty: "verecundia," a Roman and medieval virtue signifying a proper sense of shame, reserve, and moral sensitivity. For once a woman loses her sense of shame, she immediately loses her chastity. Therefore, Symmachus Quintus Aurelius Symmachus (c. 340–402 AD), a Roman statesman and orator says: "A mind that is dishonest makes even a chaste law void." And Ambrose Saint Ambrose of Milan (c. 340–397 AD), whose writings on virginity and widowhood were highly influential in the Middle Ages, in the aforementioned book, says that modesty shines more brightly than the beauty of the body. Above all, a modest and humble appearance makes a woman more lovable. While this trait is praised in a man, its absence is more severely condemned in a woman.

Seneca Lucius Annaeus Seneca, the Stoic philosopher relates that before the time of Sulla, there was a certain woman named Thatea original: "tate"; likely a reference to a figure in Seneca's lost works or a corruption of a name like Tacia or Caia who was so chaste...