Page:The Book of the Courtier.djvu/376

THE THIRD BOOK OF THE COURTIER their ladies until they reached the place where the enemy were seen, then taking leave each of his own lady, they went on in this presence to meet the enemy with that fierce spirit which was aroused in them by their love and by the desire to make their ladies sensible of being served by men of valour; thus a very few Spanish cavaliers were often found putting a host of Moors to flight and to death, thanks to gentle and beloved women. " So I do not see, my lord Gaspar, what perversity of judg- ment has led you to cast reproach on women. 52.—" Do you not know that the origin of all the graceful exer- cises that give pleasure in the world is to be ascribed to none other than to women? Who learns to dance and caper gallantly for aught else than to please women ? Who studies the sweetness of music for other cause than this? Who tries to compose verses, in the vernacular at least, unless to express those feelings that are inspired by women? Think how many very noble poems we should be deprived of, both in the Greek tongue and in the Latin, if women had been lightly esteemed by the poets. But to pass all the others by, would it not have been a very great loss if messer Francesco Petrarch, who so divinely wrote his loves in this language of ours, had turned his mind solely to things Latin, as he would have done if the love of madonna Laura had not sometimes drawn him from them?*"^ I do not name you the bright geniuses now on earth and present here, who every day put forth some noble fruit and yet choose their subject only from the beauties and virtues of women. " You see that Solomon, wishing to write mystically of things lofty and divine, to cover them with a graceful veil composed a fervent and tender dialogue between a lover and his sweetheart, deeming that he could not here below find any similitude more apt and befitting things divine than love for women ; and in this way he tried to give us a little of the savour of that divinity which he both by knowledge and by grace knew better than the rest."' " Hence there was no need, my lord Gaspar, to dispute about this, or at least so wordily: but by gainsaying the truth you have prevented us from hearing a thousand other fine and weighty matters concerning the perfection of the Court Lady." 220