Surveillance inescapably
produces a flourishing crop,
wherever it is cultivated,
of hard thorns and brambles.
Rankling fury is one fruit
that poisons praise and honor,
dishonoring many a woman
who would keep her good repute
if she were treated with justice.
When injustice is her lot,
honor and spirits are degraded—
For her, surveillance has perverted
honor and aspiration.
Wherever it is imposed,
surveillance is lost on woman,
for no man, try as he will,
can govern a woman who doesn't care.
The careful ones must not be watched—
they watch themselves, it is said.
And any watching beyond that
can only antagonize them.
Whoever tries perverts woman,
both in person and in honor
to such an extent, indeed,
that never again does she conform
quite to her usual decency.
Then there remains always something
of what those brambles have borne,
since brambles, pernicious as they are,
once sown in such receptive soil
quickly take persistent root
and are far harder to eradicate
than from wasteland or elsewhere.
Well do I know—a pure mind,
treated so long unfairly 
that its fruitfulness is spoiled,
then bears fruit far more bitter
than the bitterness that spoiled it.
This is the truth.  I have read it. 
Therefore a man who is wise
and truly respects his wife
will try no other supervision
of her good intentions,			17900
exercised in private,
beyond advice and example,
tender and sympathetic.
That is how he should watch her.
And you may be sure of this:
he can watch her no more effectively,
because, be she good or wicked,
treat her unfairly once too often
and she may take an attitude
you'd much rather she didn't have.
Therefore every solid citizen
and those with higher aspirations
will do well to trust his wife—
and trust himself, as well—
to refrain from indecency
because of her love for him.
No matter how it's tried,
a woman cannot be compelled
to give her love, by any means
of force or coercion.
Such attempts extinguish love.
In love, surveillance has no place—
it can only arouse anger,
the cause of woman's degradation.
I think that man does well
who refrains from prohibitions,
which hardly show respect for women.
We often do forbidden things
we would not think of doing
if they were not forbidden.
This prickly perversity,
God knows, is an inborn trait,
and women, who are of that strain
are children of their mother Eve
who broke the first commandment.
Our Lord God allowed her
full and free enjoyment
of fruit, flowers, and grass
such as grew in paradise
to do with as she wished,
but forbade her a single thing
upon pain of life and death.
Our priests tell us
that one thing was the fig.
She plucked it, breaking God's command,
and thus was lost to herself and God.
I am firmly convinced of this:
Eve never would have done it,
had it not been forbidden.
It was on this first transgression		17950
that she founded all her kind
by doing what had been forbidden.
If we take a broader view,
Eve would have been well advised
to do without that single fruit,
having, as she did, free access
to whatever else it was
she could possibly have wanted,
but longed to have just that
with which she ate up all her bliss.
Thus they're all Eve's children
who are eve'd after Eve.
Ho, if you could only forbid them—
what a tribe of Eves you find
in our day, who, forbidden,
throw away themselves and God!
Since this resides in their species,
something nature has put there,
those who yet can resist it
earn high praise and reputation.
An unnaturally virtuous woman
who preserves, despite her nature,
her name, her honor, and her body,
is a woman in name only—
in spirit she is a man,
and is to be much respected
with high opinion and honor
in all of her concerns.
Wherever a woman lays aside
her womanhood and heart
and takes on man's heartiness,
the fir tree is giving nectar,
the hemlock distilling balm,
the deep root of nettles
shooting up bears roses.
What could be more praiseworthy
or admirable in a woman
than that she use her honor
to combat the urges of her body
to salvage the rights of both,
her honor and her body?
It is a fight she must conduct
so as to give both their due,
and take careful consideration
that neither of the contestants
suffers from neglect.
One who lets her honor slide
for her body, or vice versa,
is not a conscientious woman,
having, as she does, the choice		18000
of upholding both of them.
Let her strive not to ruin
either of these virtues,
cost it whatever pain or pleasure
circumstances may require.
God knows, woman must
continually persevere
to advance in dignity.
Let her therefore commend
her life to moderation,
with it hedge about her mind
and embellish personal habits.
Sublime moderation
ennobles body and honor.
There is nothing under the sun,
now or has there ever been,
quite so blessed as the woman
who has entrusted her life
and her body to moderation
and has true respect for herself.
As long as she continues
able to love herself,
it follows inevitably
that all the world loves her.
Who can love a woman 
if she degrades her body,
setting her mind against it
so that she despises herself?
Who will waste his love
or throw away honors
on one who dishonors her body
for all the world to see?
We find our desire quenched
at any hint of such constriction,
and still give the loftiest name
to so nameless a business,
but no, no! It is not love.
This is but its travesty,
its perversion, soiling it,
a besmirched licentiousness,
not worth the name of woman.
As the proverb truly has it,
she who tries to love many
is by many unloved.
Let her who has a mind
to be loved by all the world
love herself first of all,
show the world love's footprints—
if they are true love's track,
the world will join her in love.		18050
A woman able to cherish
her own femininity
to general appreciation
should be rightly esteemed,
valued and appraised,
bewreathed and crowned
with continuous honors,
to the general honor of all.
To whomever she appeals,
to whom she devotes herself
with her body and her mind,
her intentions and her love,
blessed was he to be born,
selected and elected
to all the living joys of life,
having the living paradise
sequestered within his heart.
No fear must he endure
that the brambles may afflict him
while he longs for the blossoms,
or that the thorn might prick him
as he tries to gather roses.
The brambles and the thorns are gone.
All thorny antagonism
has nothing more to do here.
Rosy reconciliation
has crowded it all out,
thorns, thistles, and brambles.
In this new paradise
nothing buds from the branches
bearing any green increase
except what pleases the eye.
All of it flourishes
with womanly kindliness.
Nothing dwells within it
but faithfulness and love,
honor and public respect.
Ho, a paradise like that
so laden with delights
as though a May eternal—
there might a blessed man
find all his heart's desire
and feast his eyes on delight.
How could he be worse off
than Tristan and Isolt?
If he would follow my advice,
never should he trade his life
for any that Tristan ever led.
For when a well-behaving wife
lays her honor and her body			18100
at the feet of a man,
oho, how she puts her heart in it!
How tenderly she cares for him!
How she clears the path before him
of the thorns and thistles,
and all the anger of yearning! 
How she relieves him of dread—
far better than any Isolt
ever did for any Tristan!
And I am convinced of this—
if one searched as he should,
there live yet plenty of Isolts
in whom one might still find
all that could be desired.




    

      
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