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By Root 876 0

and legitimate owner of a fine diamond whose worth and value satisfied every jeweler who saw it, and all of them were of one opinion and said in one voice that in value, size, and purity it was all that such a stone could be, and you believed this as well, having no knowledge to the contrary, would it be reasonable for you to take that diamond, and place it between an anvil and a hammer, and by dint of powerful blows test if it was as hard and fine as they said? Moreover, in the event you did this, and the stone withstood so foolish a test, it would not, for that reason, gain in value or fame, but if it shattered, which is possible, wouldn’t everything be lost? Yes, certainly, and its owner would be thought a fool by everyone.

Then understand, Anselmo my friend, that Camila is a fine diamond, both in your estimation and in that of others, and there is no reason to put her at risk of shattering, for even if she remains whole, she cannot become more precious than she is now; and if she fails and does not resist, consider how you would feel without her, and how correctly you would blame yourself for having been the cause of her ruination and your own. For there is no jewel in the world as valuable as a chaste and honorable woman, and women’s honor consists entirely of the good opinion others have of them; since you know that the good opinion people have of your wife is as high as it can be, why do you want to cast doubt upon this truth? Look, my friend: woman is an imperfect creature, and one should not lay down obstacles where she can stumble and fall; instead, one should remove them and clear all impediments from her path so that she may run easily and quickly to reach the perfection she lacks, which consists in being virtuous.

Naturalists tells us that the ermine is an animal with pure white fur, and when hunters want to trap it, they use this trick: knowing the places where it customarily travels and can be found, they obstruct those places with mud, and then they beat the bushes and drive it toward that spot, and when the ermine reaches the mud it stops and lets itself be captured and caught rather than pass through the mire and risk soiling and losing the whiteness that it values more than liberty and life. The honest and chaste woman is the ermine, and the purity of her virtue is whiter and cleaner than snow; the man who wants her not to lose it but to keep and preserve it must treat her in a manner different from the one used with an ermine; he should not place mud before her—I mean the gifts and wooing of importunate lovers—because perhaps, and there is no perhaps about it, she does not have enough virtue and natural strength to overcome and surmount those obstacles by herself; it is necessary to remove them and place before her the purity of virtue and the beauty that lies in a good reputation.

In similar fashion, the chaste woman is like a mirror of clear, shining glass, liable to be clouded and darkened by any breath that touches it. One must treat the virtuous woman as one treats relics: adore them but not touch them. One must protect and esteem the chaste woman as one protects and esteems a beautiful garden filled with flowers and roses; its owner does not permit people to pass through and handle the flowers; it is enough that from a distance, through the iron bars of the fence, they enjoy its fragrance and beauty.

Finally, I want to recite for you some verses that have just come to mind; I heard them in a modern play, and I think they are relevant to what we are discussing. A prudent old man was advising the father of a young girl to shelter her, protect her, and keep her secluded, and among many other reasons, he mentioned these:

Woman is made of fragile glass;

but do not put her to the test

to see if she will break,

for that might come to pass.

She is too apt to shatter,

and wisdom is surely ended

if what can ne’er be mended

is put in the way of danger.

What I say to you is true,

and let us all agree:

wherever Danae may be,

showers of gold are there, too.5

Everything I have said so far, Anselmo,