- From the Introduction
"Well born and living at a propitious time for learning
You seem inclined toward the Muses.
May Heaven grant you such a desire
For holy living, the only just [source of] pleasure,
And the Daemon, who began the work,
Guide so well the issue of your thought,
That as a witness to posterity
Of how much honor you will have merited,
You may become immortal some day through your virtue,
It is thus that I have always wished you to be."
Madeleine Neveu, "Epistle to My Daughter"
With these lines, addressed to her daughter Catherine, Madeleine Neveu, Dame des Roches, concludes her epistle by extolling the merits of learning and writing as the glorious paths leading to virtue, fame, and immortality. Aware of the ambivalent attitude of her age toward learned women, Madeleine des Roches embraces a conciliatory, and politically and religiously conservative, brand of feminism that encourages women's intellectual and literary endeavors within the ideological confines set by society and the Church. Her views are representative of a majority of Renaissance women writers - or, to be more specific, of those women whose works have survived - but they are by no means true for all fifteenth- and sixteenth-century women who wrote. Indeed, while the Dames des Roches and many other ladies of similarly conciliatory modes of expression were widely celebrated for their literary accomplishments, the subversive and polemical texts of others earned them persecution, ridicule, and even martyrdom." p. ix
- "While for centuries the Burkhardtian definitions of the Renaissance have gone unchallenged, recent criticism has questioned the very existence of the Renaissance, particularly the concept of a Renaissance for women during the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries. In her essay, "Did Women Have a Renaissance?," for example, Joan Kelly questions traditional assumptions about the experience of women. She emphasizes, as other scholars have increasingly stressed, that women's historical experiences often differs from men's regarding changing property relations, institutional control, religious and social ideologies, and that, therefore, period labels, applied prima facie to women's history, are often meaningless. Her conclusions, leading to a negative answer to her question, are based on analyses of medieval and Renaissance literature, mostly written by men, that reflect on and formulate the Renaissance evolution of class relations, institutional policies, sexual and family relations, and political ideologies, all of which she interprets as representing a deterioration in the status and freedom of women in the Renaissance." p, x
- "Not surprisingly, the women with the most authentic and individual voices are those not belonging to the upper nobility, those not related to literary men, and those who were affiliated with socially, politically, or religiously subversive groups (i.e., those whose voices are marginalized for grounds other than their sex.) While the works of fifteenth- and sixteenth-century women have not been incorporated into the mainstream literary tradition, the Renaissance fortunes of their works range from "bestseller" (Margaret More roper, Marguerite of Navarre) to prohibited (Marie Dentiere); their own fortunes range from general acclaim and literary success to abject rejection and even persecution; and the sheer variety of their voices belies traditional assumptions concerning the homogeneity of "women's literature." " p. xii
- "Anna Bijins (1496-1575), a Dutch schoolmistress and sworn enemy of Martin Luther and the Reformation, was the main speaker of the Counter-Reformation in Antwerp. Her defense of Catholicism is as vigorous and as passionate as is the Geneva author Marie Dentiere's (fl. 1540) defense of the reform movement. Dentiere, a former abbess of Augustinian nuns, exemplifies the active female involvement in the Geneva reformation. Advocating the right of women to preach and to interpret Scripture, Dentiere epitomizes the reformers' nightmare about female ministerial participation in the church. Both Bijns and Dentiere were very successful as polemicists; both, however, died poor, rejected, and unsupported by those whose ideological, political, and religious wars they had fought." p. xv
- "Perhaps the most seminally important contribution of Renaissance humanism to the burgeoning of female literary activity was the availability, on a large scale, of a diversified education to laywomen fortunate enough to have had access to books and teachers. Indeed, the education of women was one of the most persuasively argued topoi in the famous Renaissance debate on woman's worth, the querelle des femmes." p, xvii
- "Renaissance education for women also differed from that of the Middle Ages in scope and availability. Early medieval education treatises written for a female audience as Saint Aldhelm's De Virginitate were usually addressed to nuns and stressed the importance of learning as secondary only to the monastic ideals of chastity and obedience. Literacy and learning were the monopolies of convents and convent schools. Indeed, as Joan M. Ferrante observes, "religious schools produced virtually all the great intellectual women of the Middle Ages." In the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries, profane didactic works written for women, such as Durands de Champaigne's Speculum dominarum and Robert of Blois' Le Chastiement des dames, made their appearance, which combined instruction in courtly behavior, social mores, grooming, and etiquette with Christian doctrine. Almost all stressed a woman's social and religious duties to the detriment of "book learning" and strove to establish a religious foundation for moral behavior. Literacy had little or no place in such education, and authors like Phillipe de Novare (1260) repeatedly stressed that only nuns should be taught how to read and write. By the fourteenth century literacy was deemed while not essential, at least permissible. The Knight of La Tour Landry (1372), author of an educational treatise, even though most concerned with the reputation and marriage of his daughters, did however encourage their reading so that they may learn from the exemplary lives of the saints. Reflecting on the moral value of literacy, he says: "Hit is a noble and faire thinge of a man or a woman to see and beholde hem-self in the mirrour of auncient stories, the which hathe been wretin bi oure Aunsetters forto shewe us good ensaumples that thei dede, to leue and to eschewe the euell." In sum, education for secular women was utilitarian and private; it aimed at bringing girls up to be chaste, humble, and pious; literacy, when permitted, was placed in the service of moral improvement. On the other hand, excellent educational opportunities existed for some medieval women in the convents and occasionally at courts: "I study Latin grammar, I say my prayers and I write," says Saint Bridget, and, according to the saint's biography, the Virgin Mary declared that she should not give up any of these occupations.
The late medieval/early Renaissance pioneer of advocating education for women, both lay and religious, was - not surprisingly - a woman: Christine de Pizan, a fourteenth-century French writer of Italian descent and the first woman in the West to make a living by her pen. She is often identified as one of the first feminist thinkers and the initiator, as Joan Kelly remarks, of "a 400-year-old tradition of women thinking about women and sexual politics in European society." "Feminist theorizing arose in the fifteenth century," Kelly adds, "in intimate association with and in reaction to the new secular culture of the modern European state." " p. xviii - xix
- "Education was of central interest to the Renaissance humanists, and their great contribution of making learning available to women cannot be overestimated. Theoretically, equal education was advocated for both sexes and for all social classes, but practically, formal education was restricted to the daughters, wives, and sisters of learned men, and to women of the nobility and the upper bourgeoisie. Moreover, the emphasis on learning not for its own sake but as a means of moral improvement (of even for Castiglione's "pleasing affability") is almost omnipresent in the educational treaties written by men for women, underscoring, thus, a continuity of purpose with the medieval tradition." p. xx
- "The exception to the general rule is provided by Agrippa of Nettelsheim ("De nobilitate et praecellentia foeminei sexus declamation"), who affirms the absolute intellectual equality - regardless of sphere of application - of both sexes: "Women and men were equally endowed with the gifts of spirit, reason, and the use of words; they were created for the same ends, and the sexual difference between them will not confer a different destiny." " pp. xxi - xxii
- "As during the Middle Ages, so during the Renaissance, the most forceful and comprehensive arguments for equal education for men and women, as well as the advocacy of learning for learning's sake (rather than as the means to a moral end), come from the pen of women, women euphorically enthusiastic about the new freedom and autonomy that the available education provided. Significantly, these arguments most often took the form of a polemic; invariably they were penned by literate women of the new secular culture. Louise Labe, Laura Cereta, and the Dames des Roches, all advocate learning for women in attacks on women who scorn this opportunity and Maria de Zayas y Sotomayer embeds it in a polemic on the marital state. "Since a time has come," Louise Labe says, "when the strict laws of men no longer prevent women from applying themselves to the sciences and other disciplines, it seems to me that those of us who can should use this long-craved freedom to study and to let men see how greatly they wronged us when depriving us of its honor and advantages. And is any woman becomes so proficient as to be able to write down her thoughts let her do so and not despise the honor but rather flaunt it instead of fine clothes, necklaces, and rings." To Labe, as Anne Larson observes, "learning for women is not restricted to the bookish erudition, ornamental and passive in character, which was advertised for the courtly lady. Nor does she recommend learning solely to improve one's morals as did the majority of Renaissance humanists who favored education. Her conception encompasses the Renaissance ideals of fame and freedom derived from liberal studies." " p. xxiii
- "In Italy the learned Laura Cereta vehemently attacks her own critics in particular and the misogynists in general with ferocity, and she provides us with some of the most rhetorically polished and cogently argued defenses of education for - and the educability of - women. She writes:
You brashly and publicly not merely wonder but indeed lament that I am said to possess as fine a mind as nature ever bestowed upon the most learned man. You seem to think that so learned a woman has scarcely before been seen in the world. You are wrong on both counts, Sempronius, and have clearly strayed fro the path of truth and disseminate falsehood. . . You pretend to admire me as a female prodigy, but there lurks sugared deceit in you adulation. . . . I would have been silent, believe me, if that savage old enmity of yours had attacked me alone. For the light of Phoebus cannot be befouled even in the mud. But I cannot tolerate your having attacked my entire sex. For this reason my thirsty soul seeks revenge, my sleeping pen is aroused to literary struggle, raging anger stirs mental passions long chained by silence. With just cause I am moved to demonstrate how great a reputation for learning and virtue women have won by their inborn excellence, manifested in every age as knowledge, the (purveyor) of honor. Certain, indeed, and legitimate is our possession of this inheritance, come to us from a long eternity of ages past. . . All of history is full of these examples. thus your nasty words are refuted by these arguments, which compel you to concede that nature imparts equally to all the same freedom to learn.
Only the question of the rarity of outstanding women remains to be addressed. The explanation is clear: women have been able by nature to be exceptional, but have chosen lesser goals. For some women are concerned with parting their hair correctly, adorning themselves with lovely dresses, or decorating their fingers with pearls or other gems. Others delight in mouthing carefully composed phrases, indulging in dancing, or managing spoiled puppies. Still others wish to gaze at lavish banquet tables, to rest in sleep, or, standing at mirrors, to smear their lovely faces. But those in whom a deeper integrity yearns for virtue, restrain from the start their youthful souls, reflect on higher things, harden the body with sobriety and trials, and curb their tongues, open their ears, compose their thought in wakeful hours, their minds in contemplation, to letters bonded to righteousness. For knowledge is not given as a gift, but is gained with diligence. The free mind, not shirking effort, always soars zealously toward the good, and the desire to know grows ever more wide and deep. It is because of no special holiness, therefore, that we women are rewarded by God the giver with the gift of exceptional talent. Nature has generously lavished its gifts upon all people, opening to all the doors of choice through which reason sends envoys to the will, frown which they learn and convey its desires. The will must choose to exercise the gift of reason.
Laura Cereta thus raises several problems facing learned women in the Renaissance. She delights in the fact that women can now avail themselves of education, but she strongly attacks the latent misogyny that prompt men to look upon learned women as prodigies, as isolated phenomena in the otherwise arid desert of female stultitude. Her eloquent defense of her sex, prompted by outrage, anticipates Virginia Woolf's reflections on the female creative genius and defies conventional wisdom and conventional authority by invoking the authority of women's past - the "long eternity" of female accomplishments." p. xxiv - xxv
- "These catalogs challenge authority by challenging the stereotype; they call patristic authorities into question by challenging the assumptions that their images of women, because they are familiar, are natural or necessarily true." p. xxv
- Quote of Maria de Zayas y Sotomayor: "But believe me that even if women are not Homers with skirts and petticoats or virgils with chingons, at least they have the same souls, abilities, and feelings as men." p. xxv
- "Men are not the sole targets of the woman scholar's ire. Laura Cereta, even more than the learned women of France, also scorns members of her own sex who disparage learned women and whose "empty-headed babbling" reeks of venomous envy: "One becomes disgusted with human failings and grows weary of these women who (trapped in their own mental predicament) despair of attaining possessions of human arts when they could easily do so with the application of skill and virtue. For letters are not bestowed upon us or assigned to us by chance. Virtue only is acquired by ourselves alone; nor can those women ascend to serious knowledge who, soiled by the filth of pleasures, languidly rot in sloth. For those women the path to the knowledge is plain who see that there is certain honor in exertion, labor, and wakefulness." Here she equates virtue with intellectual pursuits, and with personal autonomy, and with the laborious but rewarding process of acquiring knowledge.
Laura Cereta's letters summarize the major problems and aspirations of women humanists of the Renaissance: she observes that learned women had to face the authority of centuries of misogynistic literature - attitudes that prompted men to view them either as prodigies or as unnatural monsters unless, of course, their scholarly and creative energies were channeled into religious or domestic outlets or into works traditionally considered female, such as translations and devotional texts. Within those confines, their erudition lost its threat, and competition and/or envy could yield to paternalizing; without, their learning was deemed to foster promiscuity. Isotta Nogarola's anonymous accuser coined the maxim nullam eloquentem esse castam, which was to echo perennially in the attacks on learned single secular women." p. xxv-xxvi
- "Especially in Italy but to a lesser degree also north of the Alps, few learned women continued their studies after marrying. . . .Those, on the other hand, who chose to continue their studies rather than marry did so at the inordinate cost of withdrawal from the world. . . .Distrust of single women was not restricted to learned ladies; during the witch crazes of the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries throughout the Holy Roman Empire illiterate women and poor widows and spinsters were persecuted in disproportionately much larger numbers than married women." p. xxvi - xxvii
- "A second and equally important phenomenon that was to affect the lives and writings of women during the Renaissance was the Reformist movement. The Protestant Reformation, articulating the resentments and aspirations of many people throughout Europe, found women participating in its political and economic turmoil. As had been the case in the early days of Christianity during the period of the Christianization of the Germanic tribes and in the medieval reform movements, women were welcomed in the initial stages but were excluded from the decision-making process as soon as the movement triumphed and became institutionalized. Both Martin Luther and John Calvin abhorred the idea that women might become ecclesiastical (as opposed to merely sacramental) participants in the church; only the Anabaspists - themselves universally persecuted and labeled as radicals - admitted all members, whether men or women, to priesthood." p. xxvii
- "In addition to their awareness of their social and functional identity, women writers, especially those not of the upper aristocracy, were also quite conscious of their relationship of their sex to their work. This concern lends their works a distinctive voice that must be seen the context of the splintering, doubling effects of the mirror phenomenon, that is, as an incorporation of, as well as reaction to, male aesthetics. Most wrote of themselves as women; they explored their emotions, desires, frustrations, and aspirations in their texts; they advocated learning and even ecclesiastical ministry for women; they wrote defenses of women and elaborate catalogs of famous ladies and of female accomplishments of the past and the present. Even those women who eschewed direct and ostensible literary interests in women exhibit awareness of this relationship; they knew what they could or could not write. Margaret Tyler, translator of popular Spanish Catholic works, for example, protested the view that "women were intellectually unfit for anything but translation," and Anne Locke, translating Taffin's Markes of the Children of God, introduced her text by saying, "But because great things by reason of my sexe, I may not doe, and that which I may, I ought to doe, I have according to my duety, brought my poore basket of stones to the strengthening of the wals of that Jerusalem, whereof (by Grace) we are both Citizens and members." " p. xxix - xxx
- "Did women writes have a Renaissance during the Renaissance? Judged by the traditional definition of the availability of education, the secularization of instruction, the study of the classical past, the manifold opportunities of expression, and the emphasis on individuality, the answer to this question depends more on the woman's social position and familial circumstances than on her sex. The question, phrased in this conventional mold, however, does not address one of the most important aspects of education: its goals and the opportunities it provides. For those women who had a living of five hundred a year and "book-lined" cells of their own, Renaissance education provided a stupendous opportunity for personal and intellectual growth, a means for the realization of their potential; their decisions to write and to publish were their own and went beyond the expectations placed on them. For those women, on the other hand, whose intellectual aspirations were generously fostered by the humanists learning but who were not born to public positions, scholarly endeavors frequently came to an abrupt halt when adulthood set in. No institutional and seldom personal patronage were available to single secular women, nor were the customary paths of administrative or advisory careers open to them." pp .xxxi - xxxii
On Louise Labe (b. 1515 to 1524 - d. 1566) (pp 132 - 150)
- Born in Lyon, the cultural capital of France, to a prosperous rope manufacturer, in her lifetime, Labe published a single volume containing a dedicatory epistle, the prose "Debate Between Folly and Love" (her major work), three elegies, and 24 sonnets. During her childhood, Labe studied music, letters, the practice of arms, needlework. She learned Latin and Italian and, possibly, Spanish and Greek, as well. As was becoming more common, Labe wrote in the vernacular, in her case, French. She was widowed in early 1560s.
The "Debate Between Folly and Love" is a debate between the classical Roman godesss Folly (aided by Mercury) and the god Cupid (aided by Apollo) in front of Jupiter. Jupiter had called the gods and goddesses to the palace for a festival and Folly and Cupid arrived at the same time. Arguing over who should enter the palace first, Cupid attacks Folly, Folly becomes invisible, and blinds Cupid, thus explaining why "love is blind." In the debate, Cupid's object is convince Jupiter to restore his eye-sight and to force Folly to leave him alone. Each of the debaters has her/his own style, demonstrating the range of Labe's rhetorical abilities.
- Her feminist work is contained in the dedicatory letter of the "Debate Between Folly and Love." There she encourages women to become educated, if for no other reason than men will have to study harder to keep ahead of women, rendering a service to society.
"To Mademoiselle Clemence de Bourges of Lyon
- The time having come, Mademoiselle, when the stern laws of men no longer bar women from devoting themselves to the sciences and disciplines, it seems to me that those who are able ought to employ this honorable liberty, which our sex formerly desired so much, in studying these things and show men the wrong they have done us in depriving us of the benefit and the honor which might have come to us. And if anyone reaches the stage at which she is able to put her ideas into writing, she should do it with much thought and should not scorn the glory, but adorn herself with this rather than with chains, rings, and sumptuous clothes, which we are not really able to regard as ours except by custom. But the honor which knowledge will bring us cannot be taken from us - not by the cunning of a thief, not by the violence of enemies, not by the duration of time.
If I had been so blessed by heaven as to have a mind great enough to understand whatever it desired, I would furnish an example in this regard rather than an admonition. But having spent part of my youth in the practice of music and having found the time remaining to me too brief for the rude nature of my understanding, not being able myself to do justice to the goodwill I bear for our sex - to see it not only in beauty but in knowledge and eminence surpass or equal men - I cannot do otherwise than beg excellent Ladies to raise their minds a little above their distaffs and spindles and to exert themselves to make it clear to the world that, if we are not to command, we ought not to be disdained as companions in domestic and public affairs by those who govern and command obedience.
And in addition to the recognition that our sex will gain by this, we will have furnished the public with a reason for men to devote more study and labor to the humanities lest they might be ashamed to see us surpass them when they have always pretended to be superior in nearly everything.
For this reason, we must inspire one another in so worthy an undertaking from which you should not spare your intellect, already accompanied by many different graces, nor your youth and other favors of fortune, to acquire the honor which literature and the sciences are accustomed to bring those persons who follow them.
If there is something worthy of respect after glory and honor, the pleasure which literary study usually gives us ought to move everyone of us to action. This pleasure is distinct from other diversions. When one has indulged in them for as long as one wants, one cannot boast of anything except having passed the time. But study rewards us with pleasure all its own which remains with us longer. For the pat delights us and serves us better than the present, but the pleasures of the senses are immediately lost and never return, and sometimes the memory of them is as disagreeable as the acts were delectable.
Moreover, the other sensual pleasures are such that whatever memory of them comes to us cannot put us back in the frame of mind we were in. And however strong the impression of them we have fixed in our minds, we know well that it is nothing but a shadow of the past which deceives and betrays us. But when we put our thoughts into writing, even if afterwards our minds race through no end of distractions and are constantly agitated, nevertheless, returning much later to what we have written, we find ourselves at the same point and in the same state of mind we were in before. then we redouble our happiness, because we regain the past pleasure we had in what we were writing, or in understanding the sciences to which we were devoting ourselves. Furthermore, the judgment which our second impression makes of the first gives us a singular satisfaction.
These two advantages which come from writing ought to spur you on, assured as you are that the first will not fail to accompany what you write, as it does all your other actions and your way of life. The second will be yours to take or refuse, depending on whether your writing please you.
As for me, in writing these works of my youth to begin with, and after reviewing them later, I did not seek anything but an honorable pastime and a way to escape idleness, and I did not intend that anyone other than myself should ever see them. but since some of my friends found a way to read them without my knowing anything about it, and (thus we easily believe those who praise us) since they have persuaded me that I should bring them to light, I was not so bold as to refuse them. But I did threaten to make them drink half the measure of shame which would be the result.
And because women do not willingly appear alone in public, I have chosen you to serve as my guide, dedicating this little work to you. I do not send it to you for any purpose other than to assure you of the goodwill I have borne you for a long time and to make you, seeing this roughly and badly written work of mine, long to create another which might be more polished and more elegant.
God keep you in good health.
From Lyon, July 24, 1555
Your humble friend,
Louise Labe"
On Helisenne de Crenne (born between 1500 and 1515 - d. ) (p. 177 - 218)
- Pen name of Marguerite Briet
- Les Angoysses douloureuses qui procedent d'amours is a fictive autobiography (1538) about the erotic love of a married woman for a man not her husband and the pitfalls of such a passion
- From the Fourth Invective Letter (pp. 209-210)
Epistle sent by my lady Helisenne to Elenot, who, moved by temerarious presumption, addiduously condemned ladies who wish to occupy themselves with the solace of literary exercises. But, to divert him from his folly, herein are commemorated the splendid and noble minds of certain illustrious ladies.
"Therefore we my assume that you would much desire that the son of Phoebus and Cornis return to this world and at your request resusitate the most experienced in learning of the ancients, who could serve you as your dignity deserves. Such presumptions would surely make me laugh, were it not that, in laboring to exalt yourself, you totally abase the others: and you especially blame and disparge the female condition. And speaking in general terms you state that women's minds are uncultivated and obscured [incapable of coherent thought], wherefore you conclude that their only occupation should be spinning. It amazes me how quickly you rech that conclusion. I am convinced that (if you had the power) you would prohibit to the feminine sex the benefice of literary activity, claiming that women are incapable of producing good literature. If you had been more studious and had examined more diverse texts your opinion would be otherwise. At least it would if your inveterate malice did not stimulate you to persist in the enmity you bear ladies, which could explain why you pass over in silence the praise of women with which the noble orators decorated their writings. Quintilian was not ashamed to write that the dauthters of Laelius and Hortensius (very famous orators) by their learning made the elegance of their fathers' works singularly praiseworthy or desirable. Damas the daughter of Pythagoras was so very learned in philosophy that, after the Three Sisters had cut the thread of her father's life, she explained the difficult points of his maxims. Queen Senobia was so well instructed by the philosopher Loninus that because of the abundance and shining wisdom of her writing she was named Ephinisa; Nichomachus translated her sacred works, Deborah was so prudent and discreet and expert in Greek that, as we read in the Book of Judges, for wome time she exercised the office of judge over the people of Israel. Moreover, we read in Kings that Athaliah reigned and judged seven years in Jerusalem. Cornelia, the mother of the two Gracchi, formed in them the most eloquent language. Valeria, a Roman virgin, was so expert in Greek and Latin literature that she sxplained the verses and meters of Virgil according to the faith and the mysteries of the Christian religion. Aspasia was so filled with extreme learning that Socrates, the gretly esteemed philosopher, was not ashamed to learn something from her: Apollo Pythius testifies to this. Alpaides, virgin and nun, was so illuminated by divine grace that she comprehended the sense of the books of the holy Bible. Arete, av ery learned woman, ws the mother of Aristippus the philosopher, whom from the beginning she instructed in philosophy. . . . Sosipatra was so illustrious in poetic knowledge that the Ethics said she had been nourished by tghe gods. Also there were excellent poetesses and female ortors, Capiola, Lucera, Sappho, and Armisia surnamed Androginea. Certainly I believe without doubt that whoever would wish to wander the sea of learned ladies [dames scavantes], making the effort to point out their praiseworthy works, would spend more time than did Ulysses in his painful and fatiguing peregrinations. But if you, wretched fellow, want to keep saying that I mention only ancient examples and that there never was in the past nor can be in the future a more excellent and high-minded person than the most illustrious and magnanimous princess, my lady the Queen of Navarre. It is well known that in her excellent and sublime royal person reside the divine wisdom of Plato, the prudence of Cato, the eloquence of Cicero, and the reason [that is, wisdom[ of Socrates. To speak briefly, her sincerity is so filled with accomplishments that her own splendor gives luster to the feminine condition, and at the moment it suffices me to mention her alone, without thinking of other examples, to confound your vain and useless propositions, to which it is time for yur pestiferous tongue to put an end.
[In the next section, which follows without a break in the text of the letter, Helisenne goes on to reproach Elenot for making unjustified criticisms of men, as well.]" pp. 209-210
- On Les Dames des Roches
Dialogue of Iris and Pasithee (p. 254-256)
Pas.: Iris, do you wnat to do the right thing? Rid yourself instantly of the rigors of love and of your parents.
Iris: How can I, Pasithee?
Pas.: There lived in Argos a lady by the name of Telesia who, for having vowed herself to the Muses, was healed of a disease. Make a similar vow: they [the Muses] would then hea;l you of the passions of your spirit.
Iris: I do not understand you.
Pa.: You must study, turn to books, and seek pleasure from reading: in this way learning, finding root in your sould, would chase away all these vain and frivolous thoughts.
Iris: I think it was an Almanac. I took great pleasure in it but I got a headache and had to stop reading it.
Pas.: Ha, I should think so. Now the books I'm referring to do not cause headaches but rather take away all discomfort.
Iris: Are you speaking of that attractive golden book Eole was looking at the other day?
Pas.: I don't know. What is its name?
Iris: I can't remember.
Pas.: Is it in prose or in verse?
Iris: I didn't look.
Pas.: When was it published?
Iris: I don't know, but it was really nice looking.
Pas.: You must have surely looked at it, Iris, without profiting at all from it.
Iris: That's true.
Pas.: You would have pleased your Eole if you had read it a little. And surely he must have shown it to you thinking that you would have liked to read it.
Iris: I would have been very pleased to read it. But my father doesn't want me to.
Pas.: Oh, if you really wanted to, how easily you could find books to study without his knowing it! It's too bad that your beauty is not accompanied by some nobility of spirit which lasts far longer.
Iris: That's what Niree says, that my beauty of spirit will pass away like a flower. The other day he wrote that down on a paper which I have in my purse and he told one of my servants to come and present it to me. Look at it. Would you care to read it.
(Iris then asks whom she should love, Eole or a certain foreigner called Lord Felix who spoke to her at length in a language she could not understand. Pasithee enjoins the following.)
Pas.: I advise you then to delay loving someone. Wait until a discreet man presents himself in your service and is led to love you on account of some resemblance [between you.]
Iris: When will that happen to me, Pasithee? Would you please read my palm? Do you know how to?
Pas.: The discretion of a young girl, which leads to the fulfillment of her love, does not simply appear on her palm, Iris, but in her spirit, which reveals her to be wise in all her actions. Such spirits are sought out only by those like them: and what they find is well safeguarded as I have heard it said in these lines:
Fair lady, do not fear contempt.
Even though several winters have tarnished your beauty,
Furnish your mind with Virtues and Grace,
For Virtue retains what the eyes have taken.
Iris: I don't see, however, why one thinks women are more virtuous; on the contrary, men mock them thoroughly.
Pas.: Yes, the ignorant ones do. but the learned and well taught bear toward them a freindship filled with honorable reverence. Think of what Angelo Polizano said as he admired
That Cassandra Fidele
Divine honor of Italy.
Following thus the example of the noble Virgin live modestly, speak advisedly, so that if your beauty attracts men, your graces may retain them in a relation of goodwill for which they may justly say: Amorous servitude frees one from all vice.
Iris: And what must I do for that, Pasithee?
Pas.: Iris, you must read.
Iris: My father forbids it, caliming it's useless.
Pas.: Learn to write as well.
Iris: My mother does not want me to. She claims that she is astute enough without it.
Pas.: Play the lyre.
Iris: My brother laughs at that; he says it's a wste of money.
Pas.: Learn to speak well.
Iris: What! You think I don't speak well enough?
Pas.: Ha, I have been very pleased, Iris. What I am telling you is to prevent you from complaining about the inconstancy of your lovers. If you follow my advice and are not courted by a suitor, you will live a good life; if, on the other hand, you are loved, it will be by an honest man who will be faithful to you. Each seeks to love what resembles him. Men of heart and learning can love more fully for they have greater imagination: Love is formed through images transferred to the lover by the loved one. The eye and the ear are windows through which love reaches the heart. The love of corporeal beauty is perceived through the gaxe, and that of beautiful souls enters through the hearing. Embellish, therefore, your soul, if you wish to be uniquely loved by a wise, compatible, and learned friend. Otherwise, live without love to avoid the miseries which come from love: How many poor mistresses have become desolate for having lost their suitors in this unfortunate trip to Portugal! Ha! Our Chariclee cried so much when her favorite [lover] left that it was piteous to see her, for she feared that the daughter of Necessity would wound the heart of him whom she had so softly touched. I remember it said that she [Chariclee] retired to the country to flee social life and that there, while on a walk alone, she sang a song which I have since learned.
Iris: Sing it, Pasithee, I pray, for now I am in the mood to dance.
Pas.: Iris, your request is so persuasive that since I cannot refuse what pleses you I will tell it. Adapt it as best you can to the dance . . . The sweet song of Alcyone adorned this tune with much grace. Forgive me, Iris, if I have not presented it well enough for you.
Iris: It was beautiful, pasithee, but I would not have wanted it to be any longer for I wished to hear it all and I must be leaving soon.
Pas.: Why are you in such a hurry?
Iris: As I looked out the windowm I saw Eole, who was waiting for me in the street.
Pas.: Wait for him to come here so that he can bring you back home.
Iris: Oh, he would never come her. He doesn't want to speak to you because you are a learned woman.
Pas.: Ha, ha, I readily excuse him from coming, he and all those like him. I don't thinkl women study in vain since it helps them chase away gallant men of this sort.
Iris: He asked me, though, that I request your opinion of the song he wrote for me.
Pas.: The song is agreeable enough because you are its subject. but it's not Eole's invention, for he simply transcribed what he saw in your visage.
Iris: My God, how well you speak, pasithee! I would come daily to your school if I had the leisure! I take great pleasure in conversing with you. I must, however, take my leave, for Eole is calling me and it's late. I kiss your hands, Patithee.
pas.: I commend myself to your grace, Iris.
On Marie Dentiere
- From A Most Beneficial letter, Prepared and Written Down by a Christian Woman of Tournai, and Sent to the Queen of Navarre, Sister of the King of France, Against the Turks, the Jews, the Infidels, the False Christians, the Anabaptists, and the Lutherans
To the Very Christian Princess Margurite of France, Queen of Navarre, Duchess of Alencon and of Berry: M. D. Sishes Salvation and Increase of Grace Through Jesus Christ
"For we ought not, any more than men, hide and bury within the earth that which God has given you and revealed to us women. Although we are not permitted to preach in assemblies and public churches, nevertheless we are not prohibited from writing and advising one another, in all charity." p. 276
- "Not only do we wish to accuse any defamers and adversaries of the truth of very great audacity and temerity, but also any of the faithful who say that women are very mpudent in interpreting Scripture for one another. To them, one is lawfully able to respond that all those who are described and named in the Holy Scripture are not to be judged too temerarious. Note that many women are named and prasied in the Holy Scripture, not only for their good morals, deeds, bearing, and example, but for their faith and doctrine, like Sarah and Rebecca, and principally among all the others of the Old Testament, the mother of Moses, who, notwithstanding the edict of the king, protected her son from death and caused him to be reared in the house of the Pharaoh, as is fully described in exodus 2. Deborahm who judged the people of Israel in the time of the Judges, is not to be scorned. I ask, would it be necessary to condemn Ruth, given the fact that she is of the feminine sex, because of the story that is written bout her in her book? I do not think so; she is rightly numbered in the geneology of Jesus Christ. The Queen of Sheba had such wisdom that she is not only named in the Old Testament, but Jesus also named her among other sages.
If it is a quesiton of speaking of the graces which have been given to women, what greater grace was given to any creature on the earth than that given to the Virgin Mary, mother of Jesus, to have born the Son of God? She did not have less than Elizabeth, mother of John the Baptise, who had a son miraculously, as she was sterile. What preacheress has done more than the Samaritan woman, who was not ashamed to preach Jesus and his word, confessing it openly before all the world, as soon as she heard from jesus that one must adore God in spirit and in truth? Or is anyone other than Mary Magdalene, from whom Jesus had driven seven devils, able to boast of having had the first revelation of the gret mystery of Jesus' resurrection? And were not the other women, to whom, instead of men, his resurrection was announced by his angel, commanded to speak, preach, and declare it to others? Just as much as there is imperfection in all women, nevretheless, the men are not exempt from it.
Why then is it necessary to gossip about women? Seeing that it ws not a woman who sold and betrayed Jesus, but a man, named Judas. Who are they, I ask you, who have invented and contrived the ceremonies, heresies, and false doctrines on the earth, if not the men? and the poor women have been seduced by them. Never has a woman been found to be a false prophet, just fooled by them. Nevertheless, I do not wish to excuse by this the overly great malice of some women, which outstrips the bounds of measure. But there is no longer reason to make of that malice a general rule, without any exception, as some do daily, particularily Faustus, that scofffer, in his Bucolics. Seeing that work, surely I am unable to fall silent, given that it is more recommended and used by men than the Gospel of Jesus, which is defended by us, and given that this fable teller is in good repute in the schools. If God has given graces to some good women, revealing to them something holy and good through His Holy Scripture, should they, for the sake of the defamers of the truth, refrain from writing down, speaking, or declaring it to each other? Ah! It would be too impudent to hide the talent which God has given to us, we who ought to have the grace to persevere to the end. Amen!" pp 277-278
On Anna Owena Hoyers
- Anna Owena Hoyer's Advice, Which She Has Given to All Old Widows to Live Thereafter (pp 316-321)
You widows over fifty years
Keep quiet, be very honorable,
Love the life of being alone:
Remain where God has placed you,
Give him your heart:
And don't go dancing
With Heinz, Kunz, Hans, Fritz, or Franz.
They are not reliable
As many a woman may imagine -
they only love your money;
Without it your are loathsome.
I know it; take note of what I say.
You are only a bother for the men;
They do not love you.
If they pose as friendly
Their heart is far from it;
They deceive themselves.
They go to bed sighing,
Get up with lamenting;
Look at you askance with grieving.
The old blood kills the spirit;
Nothing that you do is pleasant,
No jesting goes to their heart.
Trust me, I am showing you the truth;
An old woman with a man
Can never ever flourish.
I have seen many examples
Of what strange things happen
When old women wed.
One has learned from the neighbors
How they were dragged by their hair
In their old age:
So that I thought: O poor woman,
How your old body is being abused;
You may speak of unhappiness,
You have made a bad deal
Because you have taken
This blow from your husband.
Truly, there is no prospering
When old women wed;
Regrets will come.
How many a man falls into adultery
And into the hand of the judge?
Dear old woman, please tell,
Where does this come from? One asks:
Have you not been the cause?
Yes, certainly you have been guilty
That the man cannot love you:
For there is nothing to see
In your body and face
Which may move them to love -
He may look in front or in back;
With an old woman no man can become vigorous
Be he in bed or at the table;
Think about this you old ones.
Wedlock is not suitable for you;
No man will be revived for you;
Who can hold it with an old one?
they are a purgatory for men.
Many a one who has gotten his money at a price
Would soon be free of it again:
They say: O that I had a young wife
With whom in the marriage bed
I can stretch out my limbs.
I have acted very foolishly
Since I have let myself be bound thusly
For the sake of mere money.
O phew the disgrace, who will loosen the band?
Is there no one in the whole land
Who can soften my sorrow?
May God condemn that parson to Hell
Who united me with the old post;
He acted treacherously;
May the plague overtake him.
He spoke: grow and multiply
But knew that it was i impossible.
Alas! Alas! It has happened;
things that have happened cannot be changed;
Gone is my joy and laughter:
My heart is stirred to groaning
As often as I see her move about;
Oh, oh, how am I to live?
Who will help me? Who will stand for me?
Who will loose me from her again?
Who can end my suffering?
No on without God: He helps in trouble.
I will pray that he will death
Send to my old one.
This kind of talk one hears, and lots more.
O dear old one, that's how it is;
Daily he wishes you dead;
Curses both time and hour
In which you he did wed;
Nothing about you is agreeable:
And this is the saddest
Which takes away all pleasure and joy -
He cannot become a father; He cannot beget children from you.
As long as you live, he must be
On earth a barren tree.
Your magnetism has lost its power.
No child will be born from you.
That brings pain into the heart
And hurts him when he sees
In the neighbor's house children
Having fun with their father:
When they, as tender plants young and fresh,
Sit with their mother at the table
By his side,
When looks at them the husband
Of the old woman and says then:
What shall bring me delight?
In my house I have no amusement;
Lonely am I with the old woman
Who cannot cheer me!
Oh, that I have been thusly wed!
How my precious time is wasted;
I rue my days;
Thus you old women see
What happens in your marriage.
Stop his complaining
By remaining unwed in purity,
then you will not suffer grief
Nor vexation for the men.
If you want to be well,
Then leave marriage
For the young women;
for there is hope yet;
A young woman can help
Her husband build a world.
An old woman can serve
Only to sit quietly
Or attend to her children's children
And be helpful -
To cradle the, diaper them, keep them clean,
And to wash their behinds:
That's because God gives you strength
And other things you can do at home
With sewing or spinning.
Trust God and pray in times of trouble,
Then you will win your bread
Without a man,
God receives the needy;
He is the man for all pious widows,
A father to their children:
Who knows what each needs,
Who gives necessities and provisions;
His treasure never decreases.
Look only to him, to no one else;
Take everything from his hand;
Be thankful for his gifts;
Willingly and gladly be poor as rich;
May it be alike to you if God
Feeds you by angels or by ravens.
Have you leftovers, give to him who asks
In a pious Christian way;
Have you not much, give a little.
Teach the young people
To fear God and to honor their elders,
To live with their neighbors in peace.
In humility, breeding, and piety
Be an example to the young women;
Lead them in virtue;
Teach them to honor their husbands,
To rule the house, to better the welfare,
And to raise the children well.
May each one learn his lesson,
Then everything will be well at home;
It is fitting to praise it.
Therefore as widows it is fitting
To walk in a Christian manner
With teachings and instructions.
Be patient in poverty,
Joyful in adversity,
And do not be afraid.
Hope for the best and trust truly
That God will not leave in need
Those who trust his promise.
then riches and money will fall to your share.
On the world do not be dependent
To delight yourself in it:
But as true Christians
Do not set your heart, mind, and spirit
On fleeting, worldly goods.
In the joy of God spend your time,
Read and pray, sing and write;
Set a good example for all:
If you cannot read, listen,
And meditate in quiet;
God is well pleased with this.
Thus his praise will be spread abroad
And the majesty of his name
Cultivated in every place;
Always help where you can
And with diligence that you will gain much
With works and words.
In the food life continue on,
Do your deeds according to God's Word,
Go to the Temple diligently;
Listen to what is said
And continue to pray;
Follow Hannah's example:
Who spent her time chastely,
Served the Lord day and night,
Put her trust in him:
Therefore salvation was granted to her.
This is the true manner of widows,
God will see to their welfare;
They will see him
In a green pasture.
Blessed are such women.
- Anna Owena Hoyer's Brief Reflections on the Marriage of Old Women, Since God Has Nothing to Do with It (pp 321-323)
These my brief reflections I have wanted to share with Casparo, Christiano, and Federico-Hermano Hoyers, my dear sons, and all young fellows and young and old men, who strive for honor and want to be wed, I commend them to God's grace
A man who desires to be wed
Should first of all ask God for grace:
And afterward follow through
with Anna Owena Hoyer's advice:
He who doesn't will suffer misfortune.
It is painful for me to see
An old woman stand before a parson,
To let herself be wed to a man.
No pleasure, joy, or amusement
Can be had with an old woman;
Her appearance brings an aversion.
Whom can that not hurt?
O poor man who has pledged
To thus spend his time
Without fruit, joy, and pleasure!
All his work is lost;
It is courting misery.
There is no sweetness!
No matter how one adorns her,
Let the pope, bishop, father, lord, and servant
Chatter, talk intimately, or rage;
Even if they declare it suitable,
I do not like it.
I consider the marriage of old women
A form of honest harlotry,
To tell the truth:
But no one will listen to me;
My advice finds no lodging, so to speak,
But yet I must attempt
To say: It is an abomination
That such should be in wedlock
Who no longer can be fit for it.
Look at the end of such a marriage,
I pray you all once again,
Look with your own eyes.
"Grow and multiply," said the Lord;
No old woman can do that;
Is not such a marriage abominable?
O dear men, young and old,
Stay away from old women;
I warn you conscientiously:
For in such a marriage
God's blessing cannot flourish.
Such a marriage belongs
to the horrors of destruction;
the spirit of life is choked,
Many goods are demolished,
The Lord's anger and judgment incurred,
And the conscience is seared;
Think well about this:
Do not give your noble freedom,
Masculine strength, and charm
To old women.
It is fitting, though,
That one honors old women,
Because the Scripture teaches to do so,
When they conduct themselves nobly,
Teaching the young women to be
Chaste, submissive, and economical.
If they are honorable old ones,
their hope is in the Lord;
He is the one whom they desire.
And to know none other
In their widowhood one should
Stretch out a helping hand to them,
Name them dear mother:
But wife, that is too much
And too far afield of the goal;
Therefore, let such remain
In their retirement and unanimity,
Then without remorse and pain
Beguile time with joy.
If a man is already old,
He is no longer able to grow and reproduce
Or build up his house
And place new joists,
Namely dear little children,
With a young woman;
But a young man in the house
With an old woman
Accomplishes nothing;
Nothing can be done with her.
Her breasts are empty;
there is nothing left n them.
The old body is full of complaints;
Nothing good can be born from it.
Therefore, you suitors, I advise you,
Choose a young, virtuous woman,
then your pedigree will sprout;
She can increase your generation
And wait upon you in love,
Serve you in all things.
those who do this, O weal to them!
Let old women be untouched,
Unmolested, and undisturbed;
Bring a young virgin into the house
And thus honor your marriage.
Whoever doesn't do this is vexed;
He will suffer disgrace.
On Anna Bijns
Unyoked is Best! Happy the Woman Without a Man (pp. 382-383)
How good to be a woman, how much better to be a man!
Maidens and wenches, remember the lesson you're about to hear.
Don't hurtle yourself into marriage far too soon.
The saying goes: "Where's your spouse? Where's your honor?"
But one who earns her board and clothes
Shouldn't scurry to sutter a man's rod.
So much for my advice, because I suspect -
Nay, see it sadly proven day by day -
'T happens all the time!
However rich in goods a girl might be,
Her marriage ring will shackle her for life.
If however she stays single
With purity and spotlessness foremost,
Then she is lord as well as lady, Fantastic, not?
Though wedlock I do not decry:
Unyoked is best! Happy the woman without a man.
fine girls turning into loathly hags-
'Tis true! Poor sluts! Poor tramps! Cruel marriage!
Which makes me deaf to wedding bells.
Huh! First they marry the guy, luckless dears,
Thinking their love just too hot to cool.
Well, they're sorry and sad within a single year.
Wedlock's burden is far too heavy.
They know best whom it harnessed.
So often is a wife distressed, afraid.
When after troubles hither and thither he goes
In search of dice and liquor, night and day,
She'll curse herself for that initial "yes."
So, beware ere you begin.
Just listen, don't get yourself into it.
Unyoked is best! Happy the woman without a man.
A man oft comes home all drunk and pissed
Just when his wife had worked her fingers to the bone
(So many chores to keep a decent house!),
But if she wants to get in a word or two,
She gets to taste his fist - no more.
And that besotted keg she is supposed to obey?
Why, yelling and scolding is all she gets,
Such are his ways - and hapless his victim.
And if the nymphs of Venus he chooses to frequent,
What hearty welcome will await him home.
Maidens, young ladies: learn from another's doom,
Ere you, too, end up in fetters and chains,
Please don't argue with me on this,
No matter who contradicts, I stick to it:
Unyoked is best! Happy the woman without a man.
A single lady has a single income,
But likewise, isn't bothered by another's whims.
And I think: that freedom is worth a lot.
Who'll scoff at her, regardless what she does,
And though every penny she makes herself,
Just think of how much less she spends!
An independent lady is an extraordinary prize-
All right, of a man's boon she is deprived,
But she's lord and lady of her very own hearth.
To do one's business and no explaining sure is lots of fun!
Go to bed when she list, rise when she list, all as she will,
And no one to comment! Grab tight your independence then.
Freedom is such a blessed thing.
To all girls: though the right Guy might come along:
Unyoked is best! Happy the woman without a man.
Prince,
Regardless of the fortune a woman might bring,
Many men consider her a slave, that's all.
Don't let a honeyed tongue catch you off guard,
Refrain from gulping it all down. Let them rave,
For, I guess, decent men resemble white ravens.
Abandon the airy castles they will build for you.
Once their tongue has limed a bird:
Bye by love - and love just flies away.
To women marriage comes to mean betrayal
And the condemnation to a very awful fate.
All her own is spent, her lord impossible to bear.
It's peine forte et dure instead of fun and games.
Oft it was the money, and not the man
Which goaded so many into their fate.
Unyoked is best! Happy the woman without a man.
On Margaret More Roper
"Nor do I think that the harvest is much affected whether it is a man or aowoman who does the soeing. they both have the name of numan being whose nature reason differentiates from that of beasts; both, I say, are equally suited for the knowledge of learning by which reson is cultivated, and, like plowed land, germinates a crop when the seeds of good precepts have been sown. But it the soil of a woman be naturally bad, and apter to bear fern than grain, by which saying many keep women from study, I think, on the contrary, that a woman's wit is the more diligently to be cultivated, so that nature's defect may be redressed by industry.
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