"You want to speak with the mother[326] of Evander."
Since I have touched upon antiquity, I will say a few words on the women of its peoples and descend the ladder down to our own time. The Greek women sometimes celebrated philosophy; more often they followed another divinity: Sappho[327] has remained the immortal sibyl of Cnidus; we know very little now of what Corinna[328] did after she had conquered Pindar[329]. Aspasia taught Socrates to know Venus:
"Socrates, observe my lessons. Fill thyself with poetic enthusiasm: by its potent charm thou shalt know how to win the object that thou lovest; thou shalt enchain her to the sound of the lyre, by carrying the finished image of thy passion through her ear to her heart."
The breath of the Muses, passing over the women of Rome without inspiring them, came to quicken the nation of Clovis, still in its cradle. The langue d'Oyl had Marie de France[330]; the langue d'Oc the Dame de Die[331], who, in her castle of Vaucluse, complained of a cruel friend:
"I would know, my gentle and fair friend, why you treat me so fiercely and so harshly:"
Per que vos m'etz tan fers, ni tan salvatges.
The middle-ages handed those ballads on to the Renascence. Loyse Labé[332] said:
Oh! si j'étois en ce beau sein ravie
De celui-là pour lequel vais mourant[333]!
Mediæval poetesses.