whose wit and strength enabled her to lord it over her lord should be called 'amazon,'[1] and the man should not be allowed to take the supremacy from her." This was the first answer, but neither men nor women were content with it. The women, indeed, wished that the men should either share the rule with them, or that they should take it by turns; thus would the command change, and be held, now by the men, now by the women. Some even were found who wished nothing less than that women alone should rule, alleging their greater agility both of mind and of body; therefore, as men had for so many thousand years had supremacy, it was time that they should cede it to the women. And, indeed, a few years since, in the English Kingdom, a noble example of this was seen.[2] When Queen Elizabeth ruled, she decreed that men should give their right hand to women[3] to honour them, and this worthy custom still endured. As therefore H.M. Wisdom, the queen of the world, and all her lady-councillors, had by God been created in this their sex, and yet placed over men as their rulers,
- ↑ This passage is very difficult to translate; the literal meaning of the Bohemian "muzatka" would be "manness" (the German "männin").
- ↑ Comp. "Il governo delle donne ha avuta la prevalenza nel nostro secolo; nuove amazoni sono comparse tra la Nubia e la Monopotama e in Europa noi abbiamo veduto regnare Roxolane in Turchia, Buona in Polonia, Maria in Ungheria, Elisabetta in Inghilterra, Catterina in Francia, Bianca in Toscana, Margherita nel Belgio, Maria in Scozia, Isabella che favori la scoperta del nuovo mondo in Spagna."—Campanella, "Civitas Solis," Italian translation, Lugano, 1850.
- ↑ When leading them into a room.
