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012 - Of Queens' Gardens Part 2 · Sesame and Lilies

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  Speaker 1: Section twelve of Sesame and Lilies Revised and Enlarged edition
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  Speaker 1: by John Ruskin. This LibriVox recording is in the public domain.
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  Speaker 1: Recording by Oxenhandler of Queen's Gardens, Part two. I do
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  Speaker 1: not insist upon Dante's conception. If I began, I could
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  Speaker 1: not cease. Besides, you might think this a wild imagination
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  Speaker 1: of one poet's heart. So I will rather read to
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  Speaker 1: you a few verses of the deliberate writing of a
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  Speaker 1: knight of Pisa to his living lady, wholly characteristic of
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  Speaker 1: the feeling of all the noblest men of the thirteenth century,
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  Speaker 1: preserved among many other such records of knightly honor and love,
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  Speaker 1: which Dante Rosetti has gathered for us from among the
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  Speaker 1: early Italian poets. For lo, thy law is past that
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  Speaker 1: this my love should manifestly be to serve and honor THEE.
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  Speaker 1: And so I do, and my delight is full accepted
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  Speaker 1: for the servant of thy rule. Without almost I am
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  Speaker 1: all rapturous, since thus my will was set to serve
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  Speaker 1: thou flower of joy, thine excellence. Nor ever seems that
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  Speaker 1: anything could rouse a pain or regret. But on THEE
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  Speaker 1: dwells mine every thought and sense, considering that from thee
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  Speaker 1: all virtues spread as from a fountain head, that in
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  Speaker 1: thy gift is Wisdom's best of ale and honor without fail,
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  Speaker 1: with whom each sovereign good dwells separate, fulfilling the perfection
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  Speaker 1: of thy state, Lady, Since I conceiv'd thy pleasurable aspect
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  Speaker 1: in my heart, my life has been a part in
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  Speaker 1: shining brightness and the place of truth, which till that
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  Speaker 1: time good sooth grop'd among shadows in a darkened place,
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  Speaker 1: where many hours and days it hardly ever had remember'd good.
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  Speaker 1: But now my servitude is thine, and I am full
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  Speaker 1: of joy and rest a man, and from a wild
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  Speaker 1: beast thou madest me, since for thy love I lived.
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  Speaker 1: You may think perhaps a Greek knight would have had
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  Speaker 1: a lower estimate of women than this Christian lover. His
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  Speaker 1: own spiritual subjection to them was indeed not so absolute.
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  Speaker 1: But as regards their own personal character, it was only
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  Speaker 1: because you could not have followed me so easily that
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  Speaker 1: I did not take the Greek women instead of Shakespeare's
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  Speaker 1: and instance for chief ideal types of human beauty and faith,
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  Speaker 1: the simple mother's and wife's heart of Andromache, the divine
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  Speaker 1: yet rejected wisdom of Cassandra, the playful kindness and simple
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  Speaker 1: princess life of happy Nausica, the housewifely calm of that
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  Speaker 1: of Penelope with its watch upon the sea, the ever patient, fearless,
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  Speaker 1: hopelessly devoted piety of the sister and daughter in Antigony,
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  Speaker 1: the bowing down of Ippigina, lamb like and silent. And finally,
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  Speaker 1: the expectation of the resurrection made clear to the soul
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  Speaker 1: of the Greeks in the return from the grave of
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  Speaker 1: that Alcestis, who, to save her husband, had passed calmly
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  Speaker 1: through the bitterness of death. Now I could multiply witness
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  Speaker 1: upon witness of this kind upon you. If I had time,
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  Speaker 1: I would take Chaucer and show you why he wrote
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  Speaker 1: a legend of good women, but no legend of good men.
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  Speaker 1: I would take Spenser and show you how all his
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  Speaker 1: fairy knights are sometimes deceived and sometimes vanquished. But the
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  Speaker 1: soul of Una is never darkened, and the sphere of
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  Speaker 1: Bertomart is never broken. Nay, I could go back into
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  Speaker 1: the mythical teaching of the most ancient times and show
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  Speaker 1: you how the great people, by one of whose princesses
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  Speaker 1: it was appointed that the law giver of all the
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  Speaker 1: earth should be educated rather than by his own kindred.
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  Speaker 1: How that great Egyptian people, wisest then of nations, gave
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  Speaker 1: to their spirit of wisdom the form of a woman,
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  Speaker 1: and into her hand for a symbol, the weaver's shuttle.
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  Speaker 1: And how the name and the form of that spirit, adopted,
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  Speaker 1: believed and obeyed by the Greeks, became that Athena of
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  Speaker 1: the olive helm and cloudly shield, to whose faith you
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  Speaker 1: owe down to this date, whatever you hold most precious
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  Speaker 1: in art, in literature, or in types of national virtue.
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  Speaker 1: But I will not wander into this distant and mythical element.
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  Speaker 1: I will only ask you to give its legitimate value
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  Speaker 1: to the testimony of these great poets and men of
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  Speaker 1: the world, consistent as you see. It is on this
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  Speaker 1: head I will ask you whether it can be supposed
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  Speaker 1: that these men, in the main work of their lives,
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  Speaker 1: are amusing themselves with a fictitious and idle view of
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  Speaker 1: the relations between man and woman. Nay worse than fictitious
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  Speaker 1: or idle, For a thing may be imaginary, yet desirable,
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  Speaker 1: if it were possible. But this their ideal of women is,
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  Speaker 1: according to our common idea of the marriage relation, wholly undesirable.
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  Speaker 1: The woman, we say, is not to guide, nor even
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  Speaker 1: to think for herself. The man is always to be
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  Speaker 1: the wiser. He is to be the thinker, the ruler,
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  Speaker 1: the superior in knowledge and discretion as in power. Is
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  Speaker 1: it not somewhat important to make up our minds on
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  Speaker 1: this matter? Are all these great men mistaken? Or are
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  Speaker 1: we are Shakespeare and Eschylus, Dante and Homer merely dressing
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  Speaker 1: dolls for us? Or worse than dolls, unnatural visions, the
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  Speaker 1: realization of which, were it possible, would bring anarchy into
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  Speaker 1: all households and ruin into all affections. Nay, if you
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  Speaker 1: could suppose this, take lastly the evidence of facts given
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  Speaker 1: by the human heart itself. In all Christian ages which
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  Speaker 1: have been remarkable for their purity or progress, there has
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  Speaker 1: been absolute yielding of obedient devotion by the lover to
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  Speaker 1: his mistress. I say obedient, not merely enthusiastic and worshiping
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  Speaker 1: in imagination, but in entirely subject receiving from the beloved woman, however, young,
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  Speaker 1: not only the encouragement, the praise, and the reward of
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  Speaker 1: all toil, but so far as any choice is open,
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  Speaker 1: or any question difficult of decision, the direction of all
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  Speaker 1: toil that chivalry to the abuse and dishonor of which
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  Speaker 1: are attributable, primarily whatever is cruel in war, unjust in peace,
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  Speaker 1: or corrupt and ignoble in domestic relations, and to the
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  Speaker 1: original purity and power of which we owe the defense
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  Speaker 1: alike of faith, of law, and of love. That chivalry,
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  Speaker 1: I say, in its very first conception of honorable life,
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  Speaker 1: assumes the subjection of the young knight to the command,
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  Speaker 1: should it even be the command in capri of his lady.
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  Speaker 1: It assumes this because its masters knew that the first
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  Speaker 1: and necessary impulse of every truly taught and knightly heart
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  Speaker 1: is this of blind service to its lady. And where
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  Speaker 1: that true faith and captivity are not, all wayward and
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  Speaker 1: way wicked passion must be. And that in this rapturous
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  Speaker 1: obedience to the single love of his youth is the
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  Speaker 1: sanctification of all man's strength and the continuance of all
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  Speaker 1: his purposes. And this not because such obedience would be
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  Speaker 1: safe or honorable were it ever rendered to the unworthy,
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  Speaker 1: but because it ought to be impossible for every noble youth.
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  Speaker 1: It is impossible for everyone rightly trained to love anyone
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  Speaker 1: whose gentle counsel he cannot trust, or whose prayerful command
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  Speaker 1: he can hesitate to obey. I do not insist by
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  Speaker 1: any farther argument on this, for I think it should
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  Speaker 1: commend itself at once to your knowledge of what has been,
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  Speaker 1: and to your feeling of what should be. You cannot
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  Speaker 1: think that the buckling on of the knight's armor by
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  Speaker 1: his lady's hand was a mere caprice of romantic fashion.
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  Speaker 1: It is the type of an eternal truth that the
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  Speaker 1: soul's armor is never well set to the heart unless
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  Speaker 1: a woman's hand has braced it. And it is only
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  Speaker 1: when she braces it loosely that the honor of a
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  Speaker 1: manhood fails. Know you not those lovely lines I would
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  Speaker 1: they were learned by all youthful ladies of England. Quote
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  Speaker 1: a wasteful woman, she whom may, on her sweet self,
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  Speaker 1: set her own price, knowing he cannot choose but pay.
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  Speaker 1: How has she cheapened paradise? How given for nought her
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  Speaker 1: priceless gift, How spoiled the bread and spilled the wine,
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  Speaker 1: which spent with due respective thrift, had made brutes, men
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  Speaker 1: and men divine unquote footnote Coventry, pat Moore and a footnote.
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  Speaker 1: This much then, respecting the relations of lovers, I believe
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  Speaker 1: you will accept. But what we too often doubt is
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  Speaker 1: the fitness of the continuance of such a relation throughout
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  Speaker 1: the whole of human life. We think it right in
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  Speaker 1: the lover and mistress, not in the husband and wife.
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  Speaker 1: That is to say, we think that a reverent and
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  Speaker 1: tender duty is due to one whose affection we still doubt,
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  Speaker 1: and whose character we as yet do but partially and
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  Speaker 1: distantly discern, And that this reverence and duty are to
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  Speaker 1: be withdrawn when the affection has become holy and limitlessly
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  Speaker 1: our own, and the character has been so sifted and
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  Speaker 1: tried that we fear not to entrust it with the
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  Speaker 1: happiness of our lives. Do you not see how ignoble
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  Speaker 1: this is, as well as how unreasonable? Do you not
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  Speaker 1: feel that marriage, when it is marriage at all, is
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  Speaker 1: only the seal which marks the vowed transition of temporary
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  Speaker 1: into untiring service, and of fitful into eternal love. But
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  Speaker 1: how you will ask, is the idea of this guiding
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  Speaker 1: function of the woman reconcilable with a true wifely subjection,
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  Speaker 1: simply in that it is a guiding, not a determining function.
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  Speaker 1: Let me try to show you briefly how these powers
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  Speaker 1: seem to be rightly distinguishable. We are foolish, and without excuse, foolish,
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  Speaker 1: of speaking of the quote superiority unquote of one sex
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  Speaker 1: to the the other, as if they could be compared
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  Speaker 1: in similar things. Each has what the other has not.
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  Speaker 1: Each completes the other and is completed by the other.
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  Speaker 1: They are in nothing alike, and the happiness and perfection
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  Speaker 1: of both depends on each asking and receiving from the
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  Speaker 1: other what the other only can give. Now their separate
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  Speaker 1: characters are briefly these. The man's power is active, progressive, defensive.
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  Speaker 1: He is eminently the doer, the creator, the discoverer, the defender.
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  Speaker 1: His intellect is for speculation and invention, his energy for adventure,
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  Speaker 1: for war, and for conquest wherever war is just, wherever
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  Speaker 1: conquest necessary. But the woman's power is for rule, not
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  Speaker 1: for battle, and her intellect is not for invention or creation,
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  Speaker 1: but for sweet ordering, arrangement, and decision. She sees the
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  Speaker 1: qualities of things, their claims, and their places. Her great
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  Speaker 1: function is praise. She enters into no contest, but infallibly
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  Speaker 1: judges the crown of contest. By her office and place,
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  Speaker 1: she is protected from all danger and temptation. The man
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  Speaker 1: in his rough work in open world must encounter all
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  Speaker 1: peril and trial to him. Therefore the failure, the offense,
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  Speaker 1: the inevitable error. Often he must be wounded or subdued,
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  Speaker 1: often misled, and always hardened. But he guards the woman
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  Speaker 1: from all this within his house, as ruled by her,
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  Speaker 1: unless she herself has sought it. Need enter, no danger,
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  Speaker 1: no temptation, no cause of error or offense. This is
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  Speaker 1: the true nature of home. It is the place of peace,
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  Speaker 1: the shelter not only from all injury, but from all terror, doubt,
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  Speaker 1: and division. In so far as it is not this,
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  Speaker 1: it is not home. So far as the anxieties of
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  Speaker 1: the outer life penetrate into it, and the inconsistently minded, unknown, unloved,
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  Speaker 1: or hostile society of the outer world is allowed by
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  Speaker 1: either husband or wife to cross the threshold, it ceases
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  Speaker 1: to be home. It is then only a part of
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  Speaker 1: that outer world which you have roofed over and lighted
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  Speaker 1: fire in. But so far as it is a sacred place,
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  Speaker 1: a vestal temple, a temple of the hearth, watched over
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  Speaker 1: by household gods, before whose faces none may come but
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  Speaker 1: those whom they can receive with love. So far as
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  Speaker 1: it is this and roof and fire are types only
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  Speaker 1: of a nobler shade and light, shade as of the
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  Speaker 1: rock in a weary land, and light as of the
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  Speaker 1: pharaohs in the stormy sea. So far it vindicates the
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  Speaker 1: name and fulfills the praise of home. And wherever a
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  Speaker 1: true wife comes, this home is always round her. The
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  Speaker 1: stars only may be over her head, the glow worm
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  Speaker 1: in the night cold grass may be the only fire
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  Speaker 1: at her foot. But home is yet wherever she is,
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  Speaker 1: And for a noble woman, it stretches far round her,
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  Speaker 1: better than sealed with cedar or painted with vermilion, shedding
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  Speaker 1: its quiet light far or those who else were homeless. This, then,
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  Speaker 1: I believe to be. Will you not admit it to
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  Speaker 1: be the woman's true place and power? But do not
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  Speaker 1: you see that to fulfill this she must, as far
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  Speaker 1: as one can use such terms of a human creature,
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  Speaker 1: be incapable of error. So far as she rules, all
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  Speaker 1: must be right, or nothing is. She must be enduringly,
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  Speaker 1: incorruptibly good, instinctively, infallibly. Wise, Wise, not for self development,
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  Speaker 1: but for self renunciation. Wise, not that she may set
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  Speaker 1: herself above her husband, but that she may never fail
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  Speaker 1: from his side. Wise, not with the narrowness of insolent
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  Speaker 1: and loveless pride, but with the passionate gentleness of an
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  Speaker 1: infinitely variable, because infinitely applicable modesty of service, the true
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  Speaker 1: changefulness of women in that great sense quote LaDonna Immobile unquote,
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  Speaker 1: not quote qual p. M. Albento unquote, no, nor yet quote.
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  Speaker 1: Variable as the shade by the light quivering aspen made unquote,
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  Speaker 1: but variable as the light manifold in fair and serene division,
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  Speaker 1: that it may take the color of all that it
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  Speaker 1: falls upon and exalt it. End of Section twelve.