The Praise of Folly | Page 9

to them a wife--a silly thing, God wot, and foolish, yet
wanton and pleasant, by which means the roughness of the masculine
temper is seasoned and sweetened by her folly. For in that Plato seems
to doubt under what genus he should put woman, to wit, that of rational
creatures or brutes, he intended no other in it than to show the apparent
folly of the sex. For if perhaps any of them goes about to be thought
wiser than the rest, what else does she do but play the fool twice, as if a
man should "teach a cow to dance," "a thing quite against the hair." For
as it doubles the crime if anyone should put a disguise upon Nature, or
endeavor to bring her to that she will in no wise bear, according to that
proverb of the Greeks, "An ape is an ape, though clad in scarlet;" so a
woman is a woman still, that is to say foolish, let her put on whatever
vizard she please.
But, by the way, I hope that sex is not so foolish as to take offense at
this, that I myself, being a woman, and Folly too, have attributed folly
to them. For if they weigh it right, they needs must acknowledge that
they owe it to folly that they are more fortunate than men. As first their
beauty, which, and that not without cause, they prefer before everything,
since by its means they exercise a tyranny even upon tyrants
themselves; otherwise, whence proceeds that sour look, rough skin,
bushy beard, and such other things as speak plain old age in a man, but
from that disease of wisdom? Whereas women's cheeks are ever plump
and smooth, their voice small, their skin soft, as if they imitated a
certain kind of perpetual youth. Again, what greater thing do they wish
in their whole lives than that they may please the man? For to what
other purpose are all those dresses, washes, baths, slops, perfumes, and

those several little tricks of setting their faces, painting their eyebrows,
and smoothing their skins? And now tell me, what higher letters of
recommendation have they to men than this folly? For what is it they
do not permit them to do? And to what other purpose than that of
pleasure? Wherein yet their folly is not the least thing that pleases;
which so true it is, I think no one will deny, that does but consider with
himself, what foolish discourse and odd gambols pass between a man
and his woman, as often as he had a mind to be gamesome? And so I
have shown you whence the first and chiefest delight of man's life
springs.
But there are some, you'll say, and those too none of the youngest, that
have a greater kindness for the pot than the petticoat and place their
chiefest pleasure in good fellowship. If there can be any great
entertainment without a woman at it, let others look to it. This I am sure,
there was never any pleasant which folly gave not the relish to.
Insomuch that if they find no occasion of laughter, they send for "one
that may make it," or hire some buffoon flatterer, whose ridiculous
discourse may put by the gravity of the company. For to what purpose
were it to clog our stomachs with dainties, junkets, and the like stuff,
unless our eyes and ears, nay whole mind, were likewise entertained
with jests, merriments, and laughter? But of these kind of second
courses I am the only cook; though yet those ordinary practices of our
feasts, as choosing a king, throwing dice, drinking healths, trolling it
round, dancing the cushion, and the like, were not invented by the
seven wise men but myself, and that too for the common pleasure of
mankind. The nature of all which things is such that the more of folly
they have, the more they conduce to human life, which, if it were
unpleasant, did not deserve the name of life; and other than such it
could not well be, did not these kind of diversions wipe away
tediousness, next cousin to the other.
But perhaps there are some that neglect this way of pleasure and rest
satisfied in the enjoyment of their friends, calling friendship the most
desirable of all things, more necessary than either air, fire, or water; so
delectable that he that shall take it out of the world had as good put out
the sun; and, lastly, so commendable, if yet that make anything to the

matter, that neither the philosophers themselves doubted to reckon it
among their chiefest good. But what if I show you that I am both the
beginning and end of this so great good also? Nor shall I go