Boccaccio:
No analogue
Petrarch:
Neque vero solers sponsa muliebria tantum ac domestica, sed ubi res posceret, publica etiam obibat officia, viro absente, lites patrie nobiliumque discordias dirimens atque componens tam gravibus responsis tantaque maturitate et iudicii equitate, ut omnes ad salutem publicam demissam celo feminam predicarent. Nec multum tempus effluxerat, dum gravida effecta, primum subditos anxia expectatione suspendit; dehinc, filiam enixa pulcerrimam, quamvis filium maluissent, tamen votiva fecunditate non virum modo sed totam patriam letam fecit.
Not only did his wife attend adroitly to those domestic matters which pertain to women; but when occasion demanded, in her husband's absence, she undertook state affairs, settling and composing the country's law-suits and disputes among the nobles, with such weighty opinions and so great a maturity and fairness of judgment, that all declared this woman had been sent down from heaven for the public weal.
Chaucer:
Nat oonly this Grisildis thurgh hir wit
Koude al the feet of wyfly humblenesse,
But eek, whan that the cas required it,
The commune profit koude she redresse.
Ther nas discord, rancour, ne hevynesse
In al that land, that she ne koude apese,
And wisely brynge hem alle in reste and ese.
(close this window to return to the Clerk's Tale.)
No comments:
Post a Comment