The Book of the Courtier

by Baldassare Castiglione

  At this point, signora Emilia turned to the Magnifico to say:

  ‘In heaven’s name, leave all this business of matter and form and male and female for once, and speak in a way that you can be understood. We heard and understood quite well all the evil said about us by signor Ottaviano and signor Gaspare, but now we can’t at all understand your way of defending us. So it seems to me that what you are saying is beside the point and merely leaves in everyone’s mind the bad impression of us given by these enemies of ours.’

  ‘Do not call us that,’ said signor Gaspare, ‘for your real enemy is the Magnifico who, by praising women falsely, suggests they cannot be praised honestly.’

  Then the Magnifico Giuliano continued: ‘Do not doubt, madam, that an answer will be found for everything. But I don’t want to abuse men as gratuitously as they have abused women; and if there were anyone here who happened to write these discussions down, I should not wish it to be thought later on, in some place where the concepts of matter and form might be understood, that the arguments and criticisms of signor Gaspare had not been refuted.’

  ‘I don’t see,’ said signor Gaspare, ‘how on this point you can deny that man’s natural qualities make him more perfect than woman, since women are cold in temperament and men are hot. For warmth is far nobler and more perfect than cold, since it is active and productive; and, as you know, the heavens shed warmth on the earth rather than coldness, which plays no part in the work of Nature. And so I believe that the coldness of women is the reason why they are cowardly and timid.’

  ‘So you still want to pursue these sophistries,’ replied the Magnifico Giuliano, ‘though I warn you that you get the worst of it every time. Just listen to this, and you’ll understand why. I concede that in itself warmth is more perfect than cold; but this is not therefore the case with things that are mixed and composite, since if it were so the warmer any particular substance was the more perfect it would be, whereas in fact temperate bodies are the most perfect. Let me inform you also that women are cold in temperament only in comparison with men. In themselves, because of their excessive warmth, men are far from temperate; but in themselves women are temperate, or at least more nearly temperate than men, since they possess, in proportion to their natural warmth, a degree of moisture which in men, because of their excessive aridity, soon evaporates without trace. The coldness which women possess also counters and moderates their natural warmth, and brings it far nearer to a temperate condition; whereas in men excessive warmth soon brings their natural heat to the highest point where for lack of sustenance it dies, away. And thus since men dry out more than women in the act of procreation they generally do not live so long; and therefore we can attribute another perfection to women, namely, that enjoying longer life than men they fulfil far better than men the intention of Nature. As for the warmth that is shed on us from the heavens, I have nothing to say, since it has only its name in common with what we are talking about and preserving as it does all things beneath the orb of the moon, both warm and cold, it cannot be opposed to coldness. But the timidity of women, though it betrays a degree of imperfection, has a noble origin in the subtlety and readiness of their senses which convey images very speedily to the mind, because of which they are easily moved by external things. Very often you will find men who have no fear of death or of anything else and yet cannot be called courageous, since they fail to recognize danger and rush headlong without another thought along the path they have chosen. This is the result of a certain obtuse insensitivity; and a fool cannot be called brave. Indeed, true greatness of soul springs from a deliberate choice and free resolve to act in a certain way and to set honour and duty above every possible risk, and from being so stout-hearted even in the face of death, that one’s faculties do not fail or falter but perform their functions in speech and thought as if they were completely untroubled. We have seen and heard of great men of this sort, and also of many women, both in recent centuries and in the ancient world, who no less than men have shown greatness of spirit and have performed deeds worthy of infinite praise.’

  Then Frisio said: ‘These deeds had their beginning when the first woman, through her transgression, led a man to sin against God and left to the human race a heritage of death, travails and sorrows and all the miseries and calamities suffered in the world today.’

  The Magnifico retorted: ‘If you want to preach a sermon, don’t you know that the transgression you mentioned was repaired by a woman who won for us so much more than the other had lost that the fault for which her merits atoned is called a most happy one? But I do not wish to tell you now how inferior are all other human creatures to Our Lady, since this would be to confuse divine things with these foolish discussions of ours; nor do I wish to recount how many women with such marvellous constancy have let themselves be cruelly slain by tyrants for the sake of Christ, or to speak of those who in learned disputation have confounded so many idolators. And if you should say to me that all this was supernatural and owing to the grave of the Holy Spirit, I say that no virtue is more praiseworthy than that which is approved by the testimony of God. And you can discover many more women besides, who are less talked about, especially if you read St Jerome, who celebrated certain women of his time with such marvellous praise that it would suffice for the holiest of men.4

  ‘Then think how many other women there have been who are never mentioned at all, because the poor creatures are shut away and do not have the ostentatious pride to seek a reputation for sanctity in the world, as do so many damned hypocrites among the men of today, who forget, or rather despise, the teaching of Christ which lays down that when a man fasts he should anoint his face so that he should not seem to be fasting and which commands that prayers, alms and other good works be performed not on the public square or in the synagogue but in private, so that the left hand may not know what the right is doing. Thus they affirm that the best thing in the world is to set a good example. And so, with bowed heads and downcast eyes, letting it be known that they do not wish to speak with women or eat anything except raw herbs, sweating under their torn habits, they go about deceiving the simple; and they do not hesitate to forge wills, to stir up mortal enmities between husband and wife, and sometimes, to make use of poison, employing sorceries, incantations and every sort of villainy; and then they cite, out of their own head, a certain authority which says: “Si non caste, tamen caute”,* and by this, they suppose, they can cure every great evil and plausibly convince those who are not cautious that all sins, no matter how grave, are readily pardoned by God, provided they are committed in private and there is no bad example. Thus, under a veil of holiness and in this secret manner, they often devote all their thoughts to corrupting the pure mind of some woman; to sowing hatred between brothers; to controlling governments; to exalting one man at another’s expense; to having men beheaded, imprisoned and proscribed; to ministering to the crimes and, as it were, serving as the repositories of the thefts many rulers commit. Others shamelessly delight in appearing dainty and gay, with their bristles well scraped, and wearing fine clothes; and as they pass by they lift their habit to display their neat hose, and bow here and there to show what fine figures of men they are. Others, even when celebrating mass, make use of certain gestures and looks which they think make them graceful and admired. Evil and wicked men, utter strangers not only to religion but to any good way of life! And when they are taken to task for their dissolute conduct, they make light of it all and mock the one who reproves them and they more or less exult in their vices.’

  At this signora Emilia remarked: ‘You so enjoy talking ill of friars that you have wandered right away from the subject. But you yourself do ill to murmur against men of religion, and you are burdening your conscience for nothing. For if there were not those who pray to God on our behalf, we would suffer even worse scourges than we do.’

  Then the Magnifico Giuliano smiled and said:

  ‘How did you guess so easily, madam, that I was talking about friars, since I neve
r mentioned them by name? But truly I should not be accused of murmuring, for I am speaking quite plainly and openly; and I am referring not to the good ones but to the evil and guilty, and even then I haven’t said a thousandth part of what I know.’

  ‘Well, say no more about friars,’ retorted signora Emilia, ‘because I for one consider it a grave sin to listen to you, and so as not to hear I shall go elsewhere.’

  ‘I am quite content to say no more on the subject,’ the Magnifico Giuliano continued. ‘But, to get back to the praises of women, I maintain that for every admirable man signor Gaspare finds me, I will discover a wife, a daughter or a sister of equal worth and sometimes better; moreover, many women have been the cause of countless benefits to their men, and have often corrected their errors. Now, as we have demonstrated, women are naturally capable of the same virtues as men, and we have often seen the fruits of this. So I do not know why, when I concede simply what they can have, often have had and still have, I should be supposed to be talking about the impossible, as signor Gaspare has alleged. For there have always been in the world and there still are women resembling the Court lady I have fashioned as closely as some men resemble the man fashioned by these gentlemen.’

  Then signor Gaspare said: ‘I think very little of arguments that run counter to experience. And surely if I were to ask you who were these great women as worthy of praise as the men to whom they were wives, sisters or daughters, or that have been the cause of some good, or have set men’s errors to rights, I think you would be rather at a loss.’

  ‘Indeed,’ answered the Magnifico Giuliano, ‘I would only be at a loss because of the great numbers involved. And if the time were available, I would cite for my purpose the story of Octavia, wife of Mark Antony and sister of Augustus; of Portia, Cato’s daughter and wife of Brutus; of Caia Caecilia, wife of Tarquinius Priscus; of Cornelia, Scipio’s daughter, and of countless other most remarkable women.5 And I mean those of foreign nations as well as our own countrywomen: as, for example, Alexandra,6 wife of Alexander, King of the Jews, who after the death of her husband, when she saw how the people were inflamed with rage and already seizing arms to slay the two children he had left her, in revenge for the way he had cruelly and harshly held them down, at once, such was her spirit, proved able to appease their just wrath and by her prudence win for her children the friendship of those whom their father’s long-sustained and innumerable acts of injustice had made bitterly hostile.’

  ‘Tell us at least how she did this,’ asked signora Emilia.

  ‘Well,’ continued the Magnifico, ‘when she saw the grave danger her children were in, she instantly had Alexander’s body thrown into the middle of the square; then, having summoned the citizens to her, she said that she knew that their minds were inflamed with just rage against her husband and that the cruel injuries he had done them well deserved it; and so, just as while he was alive she had always striven to make him abandon his wickedness, now he was dead she was prepared to give proof of this and, so far as it was possible, help them to punish him. Therefore, she continued, they should take his body and feed it to dogs, and tear it to pieces in the cruellest ways they could imagine; but she earnestly beseeched them to have compassion on those innocent children, who were not only blameless but could not even have known of the wicked deeds of their father. These words proved so efficacious that the seething anger of the people was at once softened and turned into such a feeling of pity that they not only of one accord chose the children for their rulers but even gave a most honourable burial to the body of the dead man.’

  After a moment’s pause, the Magnifico added:

  ‘Do you not know that the wife and sisters of Mithridates showed far less fear of death than Mithridates himself? And the wife of Hasdrubal less than Hasdrubal? Do you not know that Harmonia, daughter of Hiero the Syracusan, chose to die in the burning of her native city?’7

  Then Frisio commented: ‘Where there’s obstinacy, of course you sometimes find women who will never abandon their purpose: like the one whose husband threw her down a well but she still went on demanding the scissors by motioning with her hands.’

  The Magnifico Giuliano laughed and said:

  ‘Obstinacy that produces virtuous acts ought to be called constancy; as in the case of Epicharis, the Roman freedwoman,8 who, being involved in a great conspiracy against Nero, displayed such constancy that, although racked by the most horrible tortures imaginable, she never betrayed a single one of her accomplices; whereas in the same peril many noble knights and senators weakly accused their brothers and friends and the nearest and dearest they had in the world. And what will you say of that other woman, called Leona,9 in whose honour the Athenians dedicated before the gate of the citadel a tongueless lioness in bronze, to commemorate the virtue she had shown of steadfast silence? For she, being involved likewise in a conspiracy against the tyrants, was undismayed by the death of two great men, her friends, and though torn by countless most cruel tortures, never betrayed any of the conspirators.’

  Then madonna Margherita Gonzaga said: ‘I think you are describing these noble deeds of women too briefly; for although these enemies of ours have indeed heard and read about them, they pretend not to know them and would like them to be forgotten. But if you will allow us women to hear them, at least we shall take pride in them.’

  The Magnifico Giuliano responded: ‘I shall be glad to. So now I wish to tell you about a woman who did something that I think even signor Gaspare will concede is done by very few men.’

  And he began: ‘In Massilia there was once a custom, believed to have come from Greece, as follows. Namely, they publicly kept a poison concocted of hemlock, and anyone was allowed to drink it who could prove to the Senate that he ought to quit this life because of some personal grief or for some other just reason, in order that whoever had suffered excessive ill fortune or enjoyed unusual prosperity should not continue in the one or lose the other. Well, when Sextus Pompey found himself…’

  Here, without waiting for the Magnifico Giuliano to continue, Frisio interrupted:

  ‘This seems to me like the beginning of a very long story.’

  The Magnifico Giuliano turned with a smile to madonna Margherita and remarked:

  ‘You see that Frisio won’t let me speak. I wanted to tell you the story of a woman who, after she had demonstrated to the Senate that she ought rightfully to die, cheerfully and fearlessly took the poison in the presence of Sextus Pompey, with such constancy of spirit and such thoughtful and loving remembrances of her family that Pompey and all the others who witnessed such wisdom and steadfastness on the part of a woman on the fearsome threshold of death wept not a few tears, and were overcome by wonder.’

  At this, signor Gaspare smiled and remarked:

  ‘I, too, recall having read an oration in which an unhappy husband asks permission of the Senate to die and proves that he has just cause, since he cannot endure the continuous aggravation of his wife’s chatter and prefers to swallow the poison, which as you say was kept publicly for this purpose, rather than the words of his wife.’

  The Magnifico Giuliano answered: ‘But how many wretched women there are who would have just cause for asking permission to die on the grounds that they cannot endure, I shall not say the evil words, but the excessively evil deeds of their husbands! For I know several such who in this world suffer the pains that are said to be in hell.’

  ‘Do you not believe,’ replied signor Gaspare, ‘that there are also many husbands who are so tormented by their wives that every hour they long for death?’

  ‘And what annoyance,’ retorted the Magnifico, ‘can wives cause their husbands that is as irremediable as that which husbands cause their wives, who are forced to be submissive if not by love then by fear?’

  ‘To be sure,’ said signor Gaspare, ‘the little good they occasionally do is prompted by fear, seeing that there are few wives in the world who do not conceal in their hearts a hatred of their husbands.’

  ‘On the
contrary,’ answered the Magnifico, ‘and if you remember what you have read, we see in all the histories that wives nearly always love their husbands more than their husbands love them. When did you ever see or read of a husband giving his wife such a proof of love as Camma10 gave to her husband?’

  ‘I do not know,’ replied signor Gaspare, ‘either who she was or what proof it was she gave.’

  ‘Nor I,’ added Frisio.

  The Magnifico continued: ‘Well, listen to what I say, and you, madonna Margherita, be sure to remember it.

  ‘This Camma was a most beautiful young woman, adorned with such modesty and such a charming disposition that she was admired for this no less than for her looks. And above all other things and with all her heart she loved her husband, who was called Synattus. Now it happened that another gentleman, who was of a far higher station in life than Synattus and indeed virtually the sole ruler of the city where they lived, fell in love with the young woman; and after having tried for a long time by all ways and means to possess her, but in vain, he persuaded himself that the love she bore her husband was the sole obstacle to his passion, and he had this Synattus killed. But despite his constant solicitations he could never win more for himself than he had before; and then, as his love grew stronger every day, he resolved to marry her, although her social position was far inferior to his. So after Sinoris (as her lover was called) had asked her parents for their consent, they began trying to persuade her to accept him, arguing that her consent would be extremely advantageous and her refusal perilous for her and for them all. After she had demurred for a time, at length she gave her agreement. Then the parents sent word to Sinoris, who was overjoyed beyond words and at once arranged for their wedding to be celebrated. After the two had made their solemn entry for this purpose into the Temple of Diana, Camma called for a certain sweet drink that she had prepared herself. Standing before the statue of Diana and in the presence of Sinoris, she drank half of it; and then with her own hand (this being the usual custom at weddings) she gave the remainder to her spouse, who drained the cup. Seeing her plan succeed, Camma knelt at the foot of Diana’s statue and said aloud: