Concerning the virtues of women, O Clea, I am not of the same mind with
Thucydides. For he would prove that she is the best woman concerning
whom there is the least discourse made by people abroad, either to her
praise or dispraise; judging that, as the person, so the very name of
a good woman ought to be retired and not gad abroad. But to us Gorgias
seems more accurate, who requires that not only the face but the fame
of a woman should be known to many. For the Roman law seems exceeding
good, which permits due praises to be given publicly both to men and
women after death. Wherefore when Leontis, a most excellent woman,
departed this life, immediately we made a long oration to thee about
her, and truly not devoid of philosophical consolation; and now (as
thou didst desire) I send thee in writing the rest of my speech and
conversation, carrying with it an historical demonstration that the
virtue of a man and woman is one and the same. And although it be
not composed for the tickling of the ear, yet if there be jucundity
in the nature of an example to him that is persuaded of the truth
of it, my narration fails not of that grace which works conviction;
neither is it ashamed of commixing the Graces with the Muses in the
sweetest harmony (as Euripides saith), while it engageth confidence
especially through that part of the soul which is studious of grace
and beauty. For surely, if, whilst we asserted the art of painting to
be the same, whether performed by men or women, we produced the same
sort of draughts wrought by women which Apelles, Zeuxis, or Nicomachus
hath left, is there any one who would reprehend us as attempting
rather to humor and cajole men than to convince them? Verily I do not
think it. Moreover, if, whilst we go to make appear that the poetic
or comic art is not one thing in men and another in women, we compare
Sappho’s verses with Anacreon’s, or the Sibylline oracles with those of
Bacis, can any one justly blame this way of argumentation, because it
insinuates a credence into the pleased and delighted hearers? No one
surely would say this. Neither can a man truly any way better learn the
resemblance and the difference between feminine and virile virtue than
by comparing together lives with lives, exploits with exploits, as the
products of some great art; duly considering whether the magnanimity
of Semiramis carries with it the same character and impression with
that of Sesostris, or the cunning of Tanaquil the same with that of
King Servius, or the discretion of Porcia the same with that of Brutus,
or that of Pelopidas with Timoclea,—regarding that quality of these
virtues wherein lie their chiefest point and force. Moreover, virtues
do admit some other differences, like peculiar colors, by reason of
men’s dispositions, and are assimilated to the manners and temperaments
of the bodies wherein they are, yea, to the education and manner of
diet. Achilles was courageous in one manner, Ajax in another; the
subtlety of Ulysses was not like that of Nestor, neither were Cato and
Agesilaus just after the same manner; neither was Eirene a lover of her
husband as Alcestis was; neither was Cornelia magnanimous in the same
way with Olympias. But, for all this, we do not say that there are many
kinds of fortitude, prudence, and justice specifically distinct, so
long as their individual dissimilitudes exclude none of them from the
specific definitions.
Those things now which are very commonly discoursed of, and of which I
know thou hast had the exact history and knowledge from solid books, I
will at present omit, unless there be some public and recorded matters
worth your hearing, which have escaped the historians of former times.
And seeing that many worthy things, both public and private, have been
done by women, it is not amiss to give a brief historical account of
those that are public, in the first place.