When Rabbi Yishmael, son of Rabbi Yosei, and Rabbi Elazar, son of Rabbi Shimon, would meet each other, it was possible for a pair of oxen to enter and fit between them, without touching them. A certain Roman noblewoman [matronita] once said to them: Your children are not really your own. They said to her: Theirs, i.e., our wives’ bellies, are larger than ours. She said to them: All the more so! There are those who say that this is what they said to her: “For as the man is, so is his strength” (Judges 8:21). There are those who say that this is what they said to her: Love compresses the flesh. The Gemara asks: And why did they respond to her audacious and foolish question? After all, it is written: “Answer not a fool according to his folly, lest you also be like him” (Proverbs 26:4). The Gemara answers: They answered her in order not to cast aspersions on the lineage of their children.