No More Learning

Men do their best, that womankind should show
Whatever faults they have in open sight;
Would hinder them of rising from below,
And sink them to the bottom, if they might;
I say the ancients; as if glory, won
By woman, dimmed their own, as mist the sun.

IV
But hands or tongue ne'er had, nor has, the skill,
Does voice or lettered page the thought impart,
Though each, with all its power, increase the ill,
Diminishing the good with all its art,
So female fame to stifle, but that still
The honour of the sex survives in part:
Yet reacheth not its pitch, nor such its flight,
But that 'tis far below its natural height.

V
Not only Thomyris and Harpalice,
And who brought Hector, who brought Turnus aid,
And who, to build in Lybia crost the sea,
By Tyrian and Sidonian band obeyed;
Not only famed Zenobia, only she
Who Persian, Indian, and Assyrian frayed;
Not only these and some few others merit
Their glory, that eternal fame inherit:

VI
Faithful, chaste, and bold, the world hath seen
In Greece and Rome not only, but where'er
The Sun unfolds his flowing locks, between
The Hesperides and Indian hemisphere;
Whose gifts and praise have so extinguished been,
We scarce of one amid a thousand hear;
And this because they in their days have had
For chroniclers, men envious, false, and bad.

VII
But ye that prosper in the exercise
Of goodly labours, aye your way pursue;
Nor halt, O women, in your high emprise,
For fear of not receiving honour due:
For, as nought good endures beneath the skies,
So ill endures no more; if hitherto
Unfriendly by the poet's pen and page,
They now befriend you in our better age.

VIII
Erewhile Marullo and Pontante for you
Declared, and -- sire and son -- the Strozzi twain;
Capello, Bembo, and that writer, who
Has fashioned like himself the courtier train;
With Lewis Alamanni, and those two,
Beloved of Mars and Muses, of their strain
Descended, who the mighty city rule,
Which Mincius parts, and moats with marshy pool.

IX
One of this pair (besides that, of his will,
He honours you, and does you courtesies;
And makes Parnassus and high Cynthus' hill
Resound your praise, and lift it to the skies)
The love, the faith, and mind, unconquered still,
Mid threats of ruin, which in stedfast wise
To him his constant Isabel hath shown,
Render yet more your champion than his own.

X
So that he never more will wearied be
With quickening in his verse your high renown;
And, if another censures you, than he
Prompter to arm in your defence is none;
Nor knight, in this wide world, more willingly
Life in the cause of virtue would lay down:
Matter as well for other's pen he gives,
As in his own another's glory lives;

XI
And well he merits, that a dame so blest,
(Blest with all worth, which in this earthly round
Is seen in them who don the female vest,)
To him hath evermore been faithful found;
Of a sure pillar of pure truth possest
In her, despising Fortune's every wound.
Worthy of one another are the twain;
Nor better ere were paired in wedlock's chain.

XII
New trophies he on Oglio's bank has shown;
For he, mid bark and car, amid the gleam
Of fire and sword, such goodly rhymes hath strown,
As may with envy swell the neighbouring stream.
By Hercules Bentivoglio next is blown
The noble strain, your honour's noble theme;
Reynet Trivulzio and Guidetti mine,
And Molza, called of Phoebus and the Nine.

XIII
There's Hercules of the Carnuti, son
Of my own duke, who spreads his every plume
Soaring and singing, like harmonious swan,
And even to heaven uplifts your name; with whom
There is my lord of Guasto, not alone
A theme for many an Athens, many a Rome;
In his high strain he promises as well,
Your praise to all posterity to tell.

XIV
And beside these and others of our day,
Who gave you once, or give you now renown,
This for yourselves ye may yourselves purvey:
For many, laying silk and sampler down,
With the melodious Muses, to allay
Their thirst at Aganippe's well, have gone,
And still are going; who so fairly speed,
That we more theirs than they our labour need.

XV
If I of these would separately tell,
And render good account and honour due,
More than one page I with their praise should swell,
Nor ought beside would this day's canto shew;
And if on five or six alone I dwell,
I may offend and anger all the crew.
What then shall I resolve? to pass all by?
Or choose but one from such a company?

XVI
One will I choose, and such will choose, that she
All envy shall so well have overthrown,
No other woman can offend be,
If, passing others, her I praise alone:
Nor joys this one but immortality,
Through her sweet style (and better know I none):
But who is honoured in her speech and page,
Shall burst the tomb, and live through every age.

XVII
As Phoebus to his silvery sister shows
His visage more, and lends her brighter fires,
Than Venus, Maja, or to star that glows
Alone, or circles with the heavenly quires;
So he with sweeter eloquence than flows
From other lips, that gentle dame inspires;
And gives her word such force, a second sun
Seems in our days its glorious course to run.

XVIII
Mid victories born, Victoria is her name,
Well named; and whom (does she advance or stay)
Triumphs and trophies evermore proclaim,
While Victory heads or follows her array.
Another Artemisia is the dame,
Renowned for love of her Mausolus, yea
By so much greater, as it is more brave
To raise the dead, than lay them in the grave.

XIX
If chaste Laodamia, Portia true,
Evadne, Argia, Arria, and many more
Merited praise, because that glorious crew
Coveted burial with their lords of yore,
How much more fame is to Victoria due?
That from dull Lethe, and the river's shore,
Which nine times hems the ghosts, to upper light
Has dragged her lord, in death and fate's despite.

XX
If that loud-voiced Maeonian trump whilere
The Macedonian grudged Achilles, how,
Francis Pescara, O unconquered peer,
Would he begrudge thee, were he living now,
That wife, so virtuous and to thee so dear,
Thy well-earned glory through the world should blow;
And that thy name through her should so rebound,
Thou needst not crave a clearer trumpet's sound!

XXI
If all that is to tell, and all I fain
Would of that lady tell, I wished to unfold,
Though long, yet not so long, would be the stain,
But that large portion would be left untold,
While at a stand the story would remain
Of fierce Marphisa and her comrades bold;
To follow whom I promised erst, if you
Would but return to hear my song anew.

XXII
Now, being here to listen to my say,
Because I would not break my promise, I
Until my better leisure, will delay
Her every praise at length to certify.
Not that I think she needs my humble lay,
Who with such treasure can herself supply:
But simply to appay my single end,
That gentle dame to honour and commend.

XXIII
Ladies, in fine I say, that every age
Worthy of story, many a dame supplies;
But that, through jealous authors' envious rage,
Unchronicled by fame, each matron dies;
But will no more; since in the historic page
Your virtues ye, yourselves, immortalize.
Had those two damsels in this art been read,
Their every warlike deed had wider spread.

XXIV
Bradamant and Marphisa would I say,
Whose bold, victorious deeds, in battle done,
I strive to bring into the light of day;
But nine in ten remain to me unknown.
I what I know right willingly display;
As well, that all fair actions should be shown,
As well that, gentle ladies, I am bent
Ye whom I love and honour, to content.

XXV
As said, in act to go Rogero stood;
And, having taken leave, the cavalier
Withdraws his trenchant faulchion from the wood,
Which holds no more the weapon, as whilere.