250 - 500 words essay

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The Book of the City of Ladies Christine de Pizan

Christine asks Reason w hether there was ever a woman who discovered hitherto unknown knowledge.

I, Christine, concentrating on these explanations of Lady Reason, replied to her regarding this passage: "My lady, I realize that you are able to cite numerous and frequent cases of women learned in the sciences and the arts. But I would then ask you whether you know of any women who, through the strength of emotion and of subtlety of mind and comprehension, have themselves discovered any new arts and sciences which are ne cessary, good, and profitable, and which had higherto not been discovered or known. For it is not such a great feat of mastery to study and learn some field of knowledge already discovered by someone else as it is to discover by oneself some new and unkn own thing."

She replied, "Rest assured, dear friend, that many noteworthy and great sciences and arts have been discovered through the understanding anbd subtlety of women, both in cognitive speculation, demonstrated in writing, and in the arts, m anifested inmanual works of labor. I will give you plenty of examples.

"First I will tell you of the noble Nicostrata whom the Italians call Carmentis. This lady was the daughter of a king of Arcadia, names Pallas. She had a marvelous mind, end owed by God with special gifts of knowledge: she was a great scholar in Greek literature and had such fair and wise speech and venerale eloquence that the contemporary poets who wrote about her imagined she was beloved of the god Mercury. They claimed t hat a son whom she had with her husband, and who was in his time most learned, was in fact the offspring of this god. Because of certain changes that came about in the land where she lived, this lady left her country in a large boat for the land of Italy, and in her company were her son and a great many pople who followed her; she arrived at the river Tiber. Landing there, she proceeded to climb a high hill which she named the Palentine, after her father, where the city of Rome was later funded. Here,thi s ladyand her son and all those who had followed her built a fortress. After discovering that the men of that country were all savages, she wrote certain laws, enjoining them to live in accord with right and reason, following justice. She was the first to institute laws in that country which subsequently became so renowned and from all the statutes of law derive. This lady knew through divine inspiriation and the spirit of prophecy (in which she was remarkable distinguished, in addition to the other gr aces she possessed) how in time to come this land would be ennobled by excellence and famous over all the countries of the world. Therefore it seemed to her that once the grandeur of the Roman Empire, which would rule the entire world, had been establish ed, it would not be right for the Romans to use the strange inferior letters and characters of another country. Moreover, in order to show forth her wisdom and the excellence of her mind to the centuries to come, she worked and studied so hard that she i nvented her own letters, which were completely different from those of other nations, that is, she established the Latin alphabet and syntax, spelling, the difference between vowels and consonants, as well as a complete introduction to the science of gram mar. She gave and taught these letters to the people and wished that they be widely known. This was hardly a minor or unprofitable contribution to learning which this woman invented, nor one for which she merits slight gratitude, for thanks to the subtl ety of this teaching and to the great utility and profit which have since accrued to the world, one can say that nothing more worthy in the world was ever invented. The Italians were not ungrateful for this benefit, and rightly so, since for them this di scovery was so fantastic that they not only deemed this woman to be greater than any man, but they also considered her a goddess and even honored her during her lifetime with divine honors. After her death they erected a temple to her, built at the foot of the hill where she had resided. To ensure eternal remembrance of this lady, they used many names taken from the science she had

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discovered and gave her name to many other things, so that the people of this country even called themselves Latins in hono r of the science of Latin developed by this lady. Moreover, because ita, which means oui in French, is the strongest affirmation in Latin, they were not satisfied calling this courntry the 'Latin land,' but rather they wished that all the c ountry beyond the mountains, which is quite large and contains many diverse countries and dominions, be called Italy. Poems were named carmen in Latin, after this lady, Carmentis, and even the Romans who lived long afterward, calle done of the gat es of the city of Rome the Carmentalis. Regardless of the prosperity which the Romans enjoyed and the majesty of some of their emperors, the Romans did not change these names, jsut as it is apparent in the present-day since they still survive.

"W hat more do you want, fair daughter/ Can one say anything more solemn about any man born of woman? And do not think for a minute that she was the only woman in the world by whom numerous and varied brances of learning have been discovered!"

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Bonnie Duncan English Department Millersville University [email protected]

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