“My Lady, methinks you do your enemy much honour, and your defender very little; for so far my lord Gaspar has certainly said nothing against women that messer Bernardo has not most consummately answered. And I believe we all know that it is fitting for the Courtier to show women the greatest reverence, and that he who is discreet and courteous must never taunt them with lack of chastity, either in jest or in earnest. Therefore, to discuss such obvious truth as this, is almost to cast doubt upon that which is undoubted. But indeed I think my lord Ottaviano went rather too far when he said that women are very imperfect creatures, incapable of any worthy action, and possessed of little or no dignity in comparison with men. And as trust is often placed in those who have great authority, even when they say what is not the exact truth and also when they speak in jest,—my lord Gaspar suffered himself to be led by my lord Ottaviano’s words to say that wise men make no account of women whatever, which is most false. On the contrary, I have known very few men of merit who did not love and honour women,—whose worth (and so whose dignity) I regard as in no wise inferior to men’s. [Illustration] UNICUS ARETINUS Bernardo Accolti JO. CHRISTOFANO ROMANO VINCENTIO CALMETA NICOLO PHRYSIO SERAPHINO AUTOGRAPH SIGNATURES OF INTERLOCUTORS From negatives, made by Signor Lanzoni, from originals preserved in the Royal State Archives at Mantua and selected by the Director, Signor Alessandro Luzio. “Yet if this were to be the subject of dispute, women’s cause would be at serious disadvantage; because these gentlemen have described a Courtier so excellent and of such heavenly accomplishments, that whoso undertook to consider him as they have pictured him, would imagine that women’s merits could not attain that pitch. But if the contest were to be fair, we should first need to have someone as clever and eloquent as Count Ludovico and messer Federico are, to describe a Court Lady with all the perfections proper to woman, just as they have described the Courtier with the perfections proper to man. And then, if he who defended their cause were of only moderate cleverness and eloquence, I think that with truth for ally, he would clearly prove that women are as full of virtue as men are.” “Nay,” replied my lady Emilia, “far more so; and in proof of this, you see that virtue (_la virtù_) is feminine, and vice (_il vizio_) is masculine.”[330] 99.—Then my lord Gaspar laughed, and turning to messer Niccolò Frisio, said: “What think you of this, Frisio?” Frisio replied: “I am sorry for my lord Magnifico, who has been beguiled by my lady Emilia’s promises and soft words into the errour of saying that which I blush for on his behalf.”