15.—Then my lord Gaspar said:
“I would not have us enter upon such subtleties, because these ladies will not understand us, and although I answer you with excellent arguments, they will believe (or at least pretend to believe) that I am wrong, and straightway will pronounce judgment to their liking. Yet since we are already begun, I will say merely this, that (as you know is the opinion of very wise men) man resembles form, and woman matter; and therefore, just as form is more perfect than matter,—nay, gives it its being,—so man is far more perfect than woman. And I remember having once heard that a great philosopher says in some of his problems:[[342]] ‘Why is it that a woman always naturally loves the man who first tasted the sweets of love with her? and on the contrary a man holds that woman in hatred who was the first to give herself to him?’ And adding the reason, he affirms it to be this: because in this matter the woman receives perfection from the man, and the man imperfection from the woman; and therefore everyone naturally loves that thing which makes him perfect, and hates that which makes him imperfect. And besides this, a great argument for the perfection of man and for the imperfection of woman is that every woman universally desires to be a man, by a certain natural instinct that teaches her to desire her perfection.”
16.—The Magnifico Giuliano at once replied:
“The poor creatures do not desire to be men in order to be perfect, but in order to have liberty and to escape that dominion over them which man has arrogated to himself by his own authority. And the analogy that you cite of matter and form does not apply in everything; for woman is not made perfect by man, as matter by form: because matter receives its being from form and cannot exist without it; nay, the more matter forms have, the more they have of imperfection, and are most perfect when separated from it. But woman does not receive her being from man; nay, just as she is made perfect by him, she also makes him perfect. Hence both join in procreation, which neither of them can effect without the other.
“Therefore I will assign the cause of woman’s lasting love for the first man to whom she has given herself, and of man’s hatred for the first woman, not at all to that which your Philosopher alleges in his problems, but to woman’s firmness and constancy, and to man’s inconstancy; nor without natural reason: for being warm, the male naturally derives from that quality lightness, movement and inconstancy, while from her frigidity woman on the other hand derives quietness, firm gravity, and more fixed impressions.”
17.—Then my lady Emilia turned to my lord Magnifico and said:
“For the love of Heaven, leave these matters and forms of yours awhile, and male and female, and speak in such fashion that you may be understood; for we heard and understood very well the evil that my lord Ottaviano and my lord Gaspar said of us, but now we do not at all understand in what manner you are defending us: so it seems to me that you are straying from the subject and leaving in everyone’s mind that bad impression which these enemies of ours have given of us.”
“Do not give us that name, my Lady,” replied my lord Gaspar, “for it better befits my lord Magnifico, who by bestowing false praises upon women shows that there are none true of them.”
The Magnifico Giuliano continued:
“Do not doubt, my Lady, that answer will be made to everything. But I do not wish to utter such inordinate abuse of men as they have uttered of women; and if by chance there were anyone to write down our discussions, I should not like, in a place where these matters and forms are understood, to have the arguments and reasons that my lord Gaspar adduces against you, appear to have been without reply.”