I have turned my heart to know, And to explore, and search out wisdom and the reason of things; And to know that wickedness is Folly, and Folly madness: And I have found what is more bitter than death-- The Woman who is a snare, her heart nets, her hands chains: He who pleases God shall be delivered from her, But the offender shall be captured by her. See, this have I found (saith the Speaker). Adding one to another, to find out the account, Which I am still searching after, but have not found-- One man in a thousand I have found, But a woman among all these I have not found. Look you, only this have I found-- That God made man upright, But they have sought out many devices. In the first seven lines of this passage we may recognize the personification in Proverbs ix. 13-18. The Woman of the fifth line is "Dame Folly"; but the last eight lines relate to womankind. The assurance in the eighth line that it is Koheleth who speaks raises a suspicion that the last eight lines are commentary,--a suspicion further confirmed by the awkwardness of the writing. Strictly read, it is left uncertain whether no woman is ever captured by Dame Folly, or not one escapes. However, as commentators are generally men, the interpretation has been adverse to woman. But Jesus, perhaps remembering that Wisdom is as much a woman as Folly, is reported (Matthew xi. 19) to have said: "Wisdom is justified by her works." In Luke vii. 35 it is, "Wisdom is justified of all her children." Both of these readings appeal to the Solomonic portrait of the virtuous woman, in Proverbs xxxi. the last line of which says, "Let her works praise her," and verse 28, "her children rise up and call her blessed."