More on Women
Neither her outside, form'd so fair, nor aught
So much delights me, as those graceful acts,
Those thousand decencies that daily flow
From all her words and actions, mix'd with love
And sweet compliance, which declare unfeign'd
Union of mind, or in us both one soul.
Man is for woman, a means: the purpose is always the child. But what is woman for man? Two different things wanteth the true man: danger and diversion. Therefore wanteth he woman, as the most dangerous plaything.
Who can describe
Women's hypocrisies! their subtle wiles,
Betraying smiles, feign'd tears, inconstancies!
Their painted outsides, and corrupted minds,
The sum of all their follies, and their falsehoods.
Her sighs will make a battery in his breast;
Her tears will pierce into a marble heart;
The tiger will be mild whiles she doth mourn;
And Nero will be tainted with remorse,
To hear and see her plaints.
We cannot ask ourselves whether ‘woman’ is superior or inferior to ‘man’ any more than we can ask ourselves whether water is superior or inferior to fire. There can be no doubt that a woman who is perfectly woman is superior to a man who is imperfectly man, just as a farmer who is faithful to his land and performs his work perfectly is superior to a king who cannot do his own work.
Julius Evola Eros and the Mysteries of Love: The Metaphysics of Sex (1958)
To dwell on a heath without studying its meanings was like wedding a foreigner without learning his tongue. The subtle beauties of the heath were lost to Eustacia; she only caught its vapours. An environment which would have made a contented woman a poet, a suffering woman a devotee, a pious woman a psalmist, even a giddy woman thoughtful, made a rebellious woman saturnine.
Ah, wasteful woman, she who may
On her sweet self set her own price,
Knowing man cannot choose but pay,
How has she cheapen'd paradise;
How given for nought her priceless gift,
How spoil'd the bread and spill'd the wine,
Which, spent with due, respective thrift,
Had made brutes men, and men divine.
The gifts Athene gave her beyond women—
Skill in fair handiwork, and clever wit
And craft—whereof we never heard the like,
Not even in fair-haired Achaean women,
Lost ladies of old years, Alcmene, Tyro,
Or comely-crowned Mycene; none of these
Was like Penelope in shrewdness.
All Women quotes →