The Book of the City of Ladies Read online

  ‘I could tell you even more about my powers and my function but for now let me just say that, of all the Virtues, I am the most important since they all culminate in me. We three ladies whom you see before you are one and the same, in the sense that one cannot act independently of the others. What the first lady decides, the second one puts into effect and then I, the third one, bring all to completion. I have been chosen by the three of us to help you finish off your city, my task being to construct the high turrets of the great towers, houses and palaces which will all be covered in bright gold. I will not only fill the city full of worthy ladies for you but I will also bring you their noble queen who shall be revered and honoured above all the other great ladies present. Before I hand you the keys to your finished city, I will need your help to fortify it and make it safe with strong gates that will be brought down for you from heaven.’

  7. Christine tells how she replied to the three ladies.

  Once I finished listening to the words spoken by the three ladies, which had commanded my complete attention and had totally dispelled the dismay that I had been feeling before their arrival, I threw myself fully face down in front of them, not just on to my knees, out of respect for their noble status. Kissing the ground they stood on, I adored them as if they were great goddesses, praising them with these words: ‘Oh noble and worthy ladies, light of the heavens and of the earth, fountains of paradise bringing joy to the blessed, how is it that you have deigned to come down from your lofty seats and shining thrones to visit me, a simple and ignorant scholar, in my dark and gloomy retreat? How could one ever thank you enough for such graciousness? The sweet rain and dew of your words have already sunk into my arid mind, refreshing and replenishing my thoughts which are now ready to take seed and to put forth new shoots which will bear fruit of great virtue and delicious flavour. But what have I done to be chosen to undertake the task of building a new city on earth that you have just described to me? I am no Saint Thomas the Apostle who, by the grace of God, created a fine palace in the heavens for the king of India. Nor does my poor brain have any idea of art or geometry, let alone of the theory and practice of construction. Even if I could learn the rudiments of these things, my weak female body would hardly be strong enough for such an undertaking. Yet, honoured ladies, though I’m still daunted by the prospect of this extraordinary task, I know that nothing is impossible for God. Nor should I be afraid that anything which was undertaken with your help and advice could not be brought to a satisfactory conclusion. I therefore thank both God and you with all my heart for having entrusted me with such a noble task, one which I accept with great pleasure. Behold your handmaiden, ready to do your bidding. I will obey your every command, so be it unto me according to your word.’4

  8. Christine explains how Reason instructed her and helped her to begin digging up the ground in order to lay the foundations.

  Lady Reason replied to my words, saying: ‘Stand up now, daughter, and without further delay let us make our way to the Field of Letters. There we will build the City of Ladies on flat, fertile ground, where fruits of all kinds flourish and fresh streams flow, a place where every good thing grows in abundance. Take the spade of your intelligence and dig deep to make a great trench all around where you see the line I have traced. I’ll help to carry away the hods of earth on my shoulders.’

  Obeying her instructions, I jumped to my feet: thanks to the three ladies, my body felt much stronger and lighter than before. She took the lead and I followed on behind. When we came to the spot she had described, I began to excavate and dig out the earth with the spade of my intelligence, just as she had directed me to do. The first fruit of my labours was this: ‘My lady, I’m remembering that image of gold being refined in the furnace that you used before to symbolize the way many male writers have launched a full-scale attack on the ways of women. I take this image to mean that the more women are criticized, the more it redounds to their glory. But please tell me exactly what it is that makes so many different authors slander women in their writings because, if I understand you correctly, they are wrong to do so. Is it Nature that makes them do this? Or, if it is out of hatred, how can you explain it?’

  Reason answered my questions, saying: ‘My dear daughter, in order to help you see more clearly how things stand, let me carry away this first load of earth. I can tell you that, far from making them slander women, Nature does the complete opposite. There is no stronger or closer bond in the world than that which Nature, in accordance with God’s wishes, creates between man and woman. Rather, there are many other different reasons which explain why men have attacked women in the past and continue to do so, including those authors whose works you have already mentioned. Some of those who criticized women did so with good intentions: they wanted to rescue men who had already fallen into the clutches of depraved and corrupt women or to prevent others from suffering the same fate, and to encourage men generally to avoid leading a lustful and sinful existence. They therefore attacked all women in order to persuade men to regard the entire sex as an abomination.’

  ‘My lady,’ I said, ‘forgive me for interrupting you. Were they right to do so, since they were acting with good intentions? Isn’t it true that one’s actions are judged by one’s intentions?’

  ‘You’re wrong, my dear girl,’ she replied, ‘because there is no excuse for plain ignorance. If I killed you with good intentions and out of stupidity, would I be in the right? Those who have acted in this way, whoever they may be, have abused their power. Attacking one party in the belief that you are benefiting a third party is unfair. So is criticizing the nature of all women, which is completely unjustified, as I will prove to you by analogy. Condemning all women in order to help some misguided men get over their foolish behaviour is tantamount to denouncing fire, which is a vital and beneficial element, just because some people are burnt by it, or to cursing water just because some people are drowned in it. You could apply the same reasoning to all manner of things which can be put to either good or bad use. In none of these cases should you blame the thing in itself if foolish people use it unwisely. You yourself have made these points elsewhere in your writings. Those who subscribe to these opinions, whether in good or bad faith, have overstepped the mark in order to make their point. It’s like somebody cutting up the whole piece of cloth in order to make himself a huge coat simply because it’s not going to cost him anything and no one is going to object. It thus stops anyone else from using the material. If instead, as you yourself have rightly remarked, these writers had tried to find ways to save men from indulging in vice and from frequenting debauched women by attacking only the morals and the habits of those who were evidently guilty of such behaviour, I freely admit that they would have produced texts which were extremely useful. It’s true that there’s nothing worse than a woman who is dissolute and depraved: she’s like a monster, a creature going against its own nature, which is to be timid, meek and pure. I can assure you that those writers who condemn the entire female sex for being sinful, when in fact there are so many women who are extremely virtuous, are not acting with my approval. They’ve committed a grave error, as do all those who subscribe to their views. So let us throw out these horrible, ugly, misshapen stones from your work as they have no place in your beautiful city.

  ‘Other men have criticized women for different reasons: some because they are themselves steeped in sin, some because of a bodily impediment, some out of sheer envy, and some quite simply because they naturally take delight in slandering others. There are also some who do so because they like to flaunt their erudition: they have come across these views in books and so like to quote the authors whom they have read.

  ‘Those who criticize the female sex because they are inherently sinful are men who have wasted their youth on dissolute behaviour and who have had affairs with many different women. These men have therefore acquired cunning through their many experiences and have grown old without repenting of their sins. Indeed, they look back with nostalgia on th
e appalling way they used to carry on when they were younger. Now that old age has finally caught up with them and the spirit is still willing but the flesh has grown weak, they are full of regret when they see that, for them, the “good old days” are over and they can merely watch as younger men take over from where they have had to leave off. The only way they can release their frustration is to attack women and to try to stop others from enjoying the pleasures that they themselves used to take. You very often see old men such as these going around saying vile and disgusting things, as in the case of your Matheolus, who freely admits that he is just an impotent old man who would still like to satisfy his desires. He’s an excellent example to illustrate my point as he’s typical of many other similar cases.

  ‘Yet, thank goodness, not all old men are full of depravity and rotten to the core like a leper. There are many other fine, decent ones whose wisdom and virtue have been nourished by me and whose words reflect their good character, since they speak in an honourable and sober fashion. Such men detest all kinds of wrongdoing and slander. Thus, rather than attacking and defaming individual sinners, male or female, they condemn all sins in general. Their advice to others is to avoid vice, pursue virtue and stick to the straight and narrow.

  ‘Those men who have attacked women because of their own bodily impediments, such as impotence or a deformed limb, are all bitter and twisted in the mind. The only pleasure they have to compensate for their incapacity is to slander the female sex since it is women who bring such joy to other men. That way they are convinced that they can put others off enjoying what they themselves have never had.

  ‘Those men who have slandered the opposite sex out of envy have usually known women who were cleverer and more virtuous than they are. Out of bitterness and spite, envious men such as these are driven to attack all women, thinking that they can thereby undermine these individuals’ good reputation and excellent character, as in the case of the author of On Philosophy whose name I’ve forgotten. In this book, he goes to great lengths to argue that men should on no account praise women and that those who do so are betraying the title of his book: their doctrine is no longer “philosophy” but “philofolly”. However, I can assure you that it is definitely he who is the arch-exponent of “philofolly” because of all the false reasoning and erroneous conclusions he comes out with in his book.

  ‘As for those men who are slanderous by nature, it’s not surprising if they criticize women, given that they attack everyone indiscriminately. You can take it from me that any man who wilfully slanders the female sex does so because he has an evil mind, since he’s going against both reason and nature. Against reason, because he is lacking in gratitude and failing to acknowledge all the good and indispensable things that woman has done for him both in the past and still today, much more than he can ever repay her for. Against nature, in that even the birds and the beasts naturally love their mate, the female of the species. So man acts in a most unnatural way when he, a rational being, fails to love woman.

  ‘Finally, there are those who dabble in literature and delight in mimicking even the very finest works written by authors who are greatly superior to them. They think themselves to be beyond reproach since they are merely repeating what others have already said. Believe me, this is how they set about making their defamatory remarks. Some of them scribble down any old nonsense, verse without rhyme or reason, in which they discuss the ways of women, or princes, or whoever it might be, when it is they themselves, whose habits leave much to be desired, who are most in need of moral self-improvement. Yet the common folk, who are as ignorant as they are, think that it’s the best thing they’ve ever read.’

  9. How Christine dug over the earth: in other words, the questions which she put to Reason and the answers she received from her.

  ‘Now that I have prepared and set out this great task for you, you should carry on the task of digging up the ground, following the line which I have laid down.’

  In obedience to Reason’s wishes, I set to with all my might, saying, ‘My lady, why is it that Ovid, who is considered to be the greatest of poets (though others, myself included, think that Virgil is more worthy of that accolade, if you don’t mind my saying so), made so many derogatory remarks about women in his writings, such as the Art of Love, the Remedies of Love and other works?’

  Reason replied: ‘Ovid was a man very well versed in the theory and practice of writing poetry and his fine mind allowed him to excel in everything he wrote. However, his body was given over to all kinds of worldliness and vices of the flesh: he had affairs with many women, since he had no sense of moderation and showed no loyalty to any particular one. Throughout his youth, he behaved like this only to end up with the reward he richly deserved: he lost not just his good name and his possessions, but even some parts of his body! Because he was so licentious, both in the way he carried on and in the encouragement he gave to others to do the same, he was finally sent into exile. Even when he was brought back from banishment by some of his followers, who were influential young men of Rome, he couldn’t help himself from falling into exactly the same pattern as before. So finally he was castrated and deprived of his organs because of his immorality. He’s another good example of what I was telling you about just now: once he realized that he could no longer indulge in the same kind of pleasures as before, he began to attack women with his sly remarks in an attempt to make others despise them too.’

  ‘My lady, your words certainly ring true. However, I’ve seen another book by an Italian writer called Cecco d’Ascoli who, if I remember correctly, comes from the Marches or Tuscany. In this work, he says some extraordinarily unpleasant things which are worse than anything else I’ve ever read and which shouldn’t be repeated by anybody with any sense.’

  Reason’s response was: ‘My dear girl, don’t be surprised if Cecco d’Ascoli slandered the whole of womankind since he hated and despised them all. Being unspeakably wicked, he tried to make all other men share his nasty opinion about women. He too got what he deserved: thanks to his heretical views, he suffered a shameful death at the stake.’

  ‘My lady, I’ve also come across another little book in Latin, called On the Secrets of Women, which states that the female body is inherently flawed and defective in many of its functions.’5

  Reason replied, ‘You shouldn’t need any other evidence than that of your own body to realize that this book is a complete fabrication and stuffed with lies. Though some may attribute the book to Aristotle, it is unthinkable that a philosopher as great as he would have produced such outrageous nonsense. Any woman who reads it can see that, since certain things it says are the complete opposite of her own experience, she can safely assume that the rest of the book is equally unreliable. Incidentally, do you remember the part at the beginning where he claims that one of the popes excommunicated any man found either reading the book out loud to a woman or giving it to her to read for herself?’

  ‘Yes, my lady, I do remember that passage.’

  ‘Do you know what evil motive drove him to put such vile words at the front of his book for gullible, foolish men to read?’

  ‘No, my lady, you’ll have to tell me.’

  ‘It was because he didn’t want women to get hold of his book and read it or have someone else read it to them for fear that if they did, they would pour scorn on it and would recognize it for the utter rubbish that it is. By this ruse, he thought he could trick the men who wanted to read his text.’

  ‘My lady, amongst the other things he said, I seem to remember that, after going on at great length about female children being the result of some weakness or deficiency in the mother’s womb, he claimed that Nature herself is ashamed when she sees that she has created such an imperfect being.’

  ‘Well, my dear Christine, surely it’s obvious that those who come out with this opinion are totally misguided and irrational? How can Nature, who is God’s handmaiden, be more powerful than her own master from whom she derives her authority in the first pl
ace? It is God almighty who, at the very core of His being, nurtured the idea of creating man and woman. When He put His divine wish into action and made Adam from the clay of the fields of Damascus, He took him to dwell in the earthly paradise, which has always been the noblest place on this lowly earth. There He put Adam to sleep and created the body of woman from one of his ribs. This was a sign that she was meant to be his companion standing at his side, whom he would love as if they were one flesh, and not his servant lying at his feet. If the Divine Craftsman Himself wasn’t ashamed to create the female form, why should Nature be? It really is the height of stupidity to claim otherwise. Moreover, how was she created? I’m not sure if you realize this, but it was in God’s image.6 How can anybody dare to speak ill of something which bears such a noble imprint? There are, however, some who are foolish enough to maintain that when God made man in His image, this means His physical body. Yet this is not the case, for at that time God had not yet adopted a human form, so it has to be understood to mean the soul, which is immaterial intellect and which will resemble God until the end of time. He endowed both male and female with this soul, which He made equally noble and virtuous in the two sexes. Whilst we’re still on the subject of how the human body was formed, woman was created by the very finest of craftsmen. And where exactly was she made? Why, in the earthly paradise. What from? Was it from coarse matter? No, it was from the finest material that had yet been invented by God: from the body of man himself.’