Essays, or discourses, vol. 2 (of 4)

by Benito Jerónimo Feijoo

XLIV. And, that it should not be thought the latter ages are inferior to the antient ones in resolute and courageous women, see the maid of Orleans present herself, and stand forth compleatly armed, as the pillar, which, in its greatest distress, supported the tottering monarchy of France; which she did so amazingly, that the English and French, who were as opposite in sentiments as in arms, imputed her extraordinary feats, the one to a diabolical compact, and the other to divine assistance. The English perhaps feigned the first, for the purpose of throwing an odium on their enemies; and those who had the management of affairs in France, suggested the other politically; for it was of vast importance, when the people and soldiers were so greatly dismayed, to raise their dejected spirits, by persuading them, that heaven had declared itself their ally, and introduced on the theatre of the world, a damsel of perspicuity and magnanimity, as an inspired instrument, which was equal to, and capable of effecting the miraculous succour. A Margaret of Denmark, in the fourteenth century, in her own person, headed an army, and conquered the kingdom of Sweden, taking king Albertus prisoner. The authors of those times, call her the second Semiramis. One Marulla, a native of Lemnos, an island in the Archipelago, when the fortress of Cochin was besieged, upon seeing her father slain, snatched up his sword and shield; and having prevailed on the whole garrison to follow her, she put herself at their head, and, encouraging them by her example, charged the enemy with such ardour, that she drove them from their trenches, and obliged the Basha Soliman to raise the siege: which action, the Venetian general Loredano, who was proprietor of the place, rewarded, by permitting her to chuse for a husband, whichever of the most illustrious captains of his army she liked best, promising at the same time, to settle on her and her consort, a fortune suitable to their rank, which he did in the name of the republic. One Blanca de Rossi, the wife of Baptista Porta, a Paduan captain, who, after defending valorously a post on the walls of Bassano, a fortress in the march of Tresvina, finding the place suddenly taken by treachery, and her husband made prisoner and put to death by the tyrant Ezelinus, and perceiving she had no means left to escape falling a victim to the brutal passion of that ravisher, who was furiously enamoured with her beauty; she threw herself out of the window of an upper room; but being afterwards, against her inclination, cured of the bruises she received, and enduring with anguish and regret under that oppressive barbarian, the shame of having been forced, she, to relieve the bitterness of her grief, and to extricate herself from continuing in a state of violation to her conjugal faith, deprived herself of life in the sepulchre of her husband, which for the purpose of doing it there she had caused to be opened. We could instance many other women of heroic courage, and particularize the occasions on which they exerted it; but, to avoid the recital appearing prolix or tedious, we shall omit the relation of them.

XLV. The reason of my not having yet mentioned the Amazons, which is a case so applicable to this matter, is, because I think it will be better to treat of them separately. Some authors, in opposition to many others who affirm it, deny their existence; but without engaging in this dispute, we must allow, that much fable has been mixed with the history of the Amazons; such as that they destroyed all their male children; that they lived in a total state of separation from the other sex, and only consorted with them once a year for the sake of becoming pregnant. Of a piece with these, are the tales of their encounters with Hercules and Theseus, and the succour given to afflicted Troy by the fierce Penthesilea, and perhaps that also, of the visit of queen Talestris to Alexander. But with all this, against the testimony and credit of so many antient authors, it would be rash to deny, that there was a formidable body of warlike women in Asia, who went by the name of Amazons.

XLVI. But in case this should be denied, in lieu of the Asiatic Amazonians they deprive us of, we should be supplied with another set, drawn from the other three parts of the globe, ready to stand forth and take their places. The Spaniards discovered American ones, navigating armed, on the river Maranon, which is the largest in the world, and to which, for this reason, they gave the name of the river of the Amazons. There are some of them in Africa, in a province of the empire of Monomotapa: and, it is said, they are the best soldiers in all that territory; there are not wanting geographers, who made Monomotapa a distinct state from the country these warlike women inhabit.

XLVII. In Europe, although in no part of it the women are military people by profession, we may venture to give the name of Amazons to those who upon different occasions, have fought in such battalions or squadrons, as have defeated and triumphed over the enemies of their country. Such were the French women of Beauvais, who, when that city, in the year 1742, was besieged by the Burgundians, on the day of the assault, united themselves together under the conduct or command of Joan Hacheta, and vigorously repulsed the enemy; their captain Hacheta, having with her own hands, tumbled the person headlong from the walls, who attempted to erect the enemies’ standard there. To commemorate this transaction, they keep an annual festival in that city, and the women on the feast-day, have the singular privilege of walking in procession before the men. Such also, were the inhabitants of the islands Echinadas, called at present Bur-Solares, celebrated for the victory of Lepanto, which was gained in the sea of these islands. The year antecedent to this famous battle, the Turks having attacked the principal island, the Venetian governor Antonio Balbo, and all the men, were so terrified, that they betook themselves to flight in the night, leaving the women behind them, who, at the instance of a priest named Antonio Rosoneo, resolved to defend the place; and, much to the honour of their own sex, and the disgrace of ours, they really did defend it.

N. B. With respect to the women who laid violent hands on themselves, we do not mean to propose their resolution as examples of virtue, but only to exhibit it, as a vicious excess of fierce courage, which is sufficient to answer the purpose intended.

SECT. VIII.

XLVIII. After all this recital of magnanimous women, there still remains something to be said on a particular, which the men point out as their weak side, and with respect to which, they charge them with the greatest want of constancy; that is, their not being firm in keeping a secret. Cato the Censor in this instance, would not admit of any exception whatever with regard to them, and condemned the trusting a secret to any woman, be she who she would, as one of the greatest errors a man could run into; but Cato’s own great niece Porcia, daughter of Cato the younger, and wife of Marcus Brutus, gave the lie to this assertion, she having obliged her husband, to confide to her the grand secret of the conspiracy against Cæsar, by the extraordinary proof she exhibited to him of her valour and constancy, in the great wound she voluntarily gave herself with a knife in the thigh.

XLIX. Pliny, quoting the Magi as his authors, tells us, that the heart of a certain bird, applied to the breast of a woman when she is asleep, will make her reveal all her secrets. And in another place, he says, the tongue of a certain snake will have the same effect. The magicians being obliged to search among the hidden secrets of Nature, for keys to unlock the doors of their hearts, is no proof, of the women’s being so easily brought to reveal what has been confided to them. But let us laugh with Pliny at these inventions; and let us grant, if you please, that there are very few women strict observers of a secret; but, in return to this, it is confessed on the other hand by the most experienced politicians, that there are very few men also, to whom you can confide secrets of importance; and truly, if such men were not very scarce commodities, princes would not hold them in such high estimation, as to think scarce any of their richest moveables equal to them in value.

L. Nor are there examples wanting, of women of invincible constancy in the article of keeping a secret. Pythagoras, when he found himself near dying, delivered all his writings, in which were contained the most hidden mysteries of his philosophy, into the custody of his prudent and dutiful daughter Damo; directing her at the same time, never to permit them to be published, which injunction she so punctually obeyed, that, even when she found herself reduced to extreme poverty, and could have sold those books for a large sum of money, she chose rather to endure the anguish and pinchings of want, than be deficient in point of the confidence reposed in her by her father.

LI. The magnanimous Aretaphila, whom we have already mentioned, having attempted to take away the life of her husband by a poisonous draught before she entered into a conspiracy against him, which was to be carried into execution by force of arms, was surprized and detected in the fact, and being put to the torture to discover who were her comforters and abettors, the force of the torment was so far from extorting the secret, or depriving her of the possession of herself, or the use of her reason, that, after owning she intended to give him the poison, she had the address to persuade the tyrant it was a love-philter, and contrived for the purpose of increasing his passion for her. In fact, this ingenious fiction had the effect of a philter, for Nicotratus’s love of her was afterwards greatly increased from this persuasion, that she, who was solicitous to excite in him an arduous and excessive desire for her, could not do otherwise than entertain a sincere tenderness and affection for him.