Page:The Book of the Courtier.djvu/339

 THE THIRD BOOK OF THE COURTIER better for them to die than to live widowed or fatherless and brotherless, and to remember that their children were begotten of those who had slain their fathers, or that they themselves were born of those who had slain their husbands. Lamenting thus and weeping, many of them carried their little babes in their arms,"*' some of whom were already beginning to loose the tongue and seemed to try to call and to make merry with their grandsires; to whom the women showed the little ones, and said, weeping: 'Behold your blood, which with such heat and fury you are seeking to shed with your own hands.' " The women's dutifulness and wisdom wrought such great effect at this pass, that not only were lasting friendship and union established between the two hostile kings, but what was stranger, the Sabines came to live at Rome, and of the two peo- ples a single one was made. And thus this union greatly in- creased the power of Rome, thanks to those wise and lofty- minded women, who were rewarded by Romulus in such fashion that in dividing the people into thirty wards he gave thereto the names of the Sabine women." 3I-— Here having paused a little, and seeing that my lord Gas- par did not speak, the Magnifico Giuliano said: " Do you not think that these women were the cause of good to their men-folk and contributed to the greatness of Rome?" My lord Gaspar replied: "No doubt they were worthy of much praise; but had you been as willing to tell the sins of women as their good works, you would not have omitted to say that in this war of Titus Tatius a woman betrayed Rome and showed the enemy the way to seize the Capitol, whereby the Romans came near being all destroyed.'""' The Magnifico Giuliano replied: " You tell me of a single bad woman, while I tell you of count- less good ones; and besides those already mentioned, I could show you a thousand other instances on my side, of benefits done to Rome by women, and could tell you why a temple was dedi- cated of old to Venus Armata,'" and another to Venus Calva,"' and how the Festival of the Handmaidens was instituted in honour of Juno because handmaidens once delivered Rome from 199