Book of Equality
Interview With Christine de Pizan
By Stephanie Walsh
S- So Christine, what circumstances brought you to where you are today?
C- Well my career started when I was 25, right after my husband died. After he was gone I had to find a way to support the kids and me. I had tried to collect money from his estate but there were all these complicated lawsuits, luckily I had other ways of supporting my family. When I was a little girl I would go to Charles V’s archive and read the books there. This was the reason I went into writing and how I educated myself.
S- What kind of things did you write about?
C- At first I mainly wrote love ballads, these caught the attention of wealthy patrons within the court.
S- Can we hear one of your ballads please?
C- Sure.
S- That was beautiful. However you said that you used to write these ballads, so what do you do know?
C- Now I focus on writing books about how women are as strong as men, like in my new book The Book of the City of Ladies. I have faced abusive literary treatment for these books. However, these abusers only prey on people they think are weak. If you prove that you are strong, then they will realize that what they say has no affect on you and they will stop. Even though there are men in this world who are afraid of a women knowing as much as they do, there are also wise men that see the potential that women have. So despite the foolish men who cannot tolerate having a women equal to them, I have some male supporters as well as female.
S- Thank you very much for taking the time for meeting me today. I look forward to reading you new poem.
Love, I had not ever thought / Thou would'st bid thy servant share / Grief to which all else is naught, / Grief whereunder I despair: / Thus unfaltering I declare / That in death I pass away / If thy saving grace delay. / In a burning passion caught / I grow faint, and may not bear / All the torment it hath wrought: / Thine the fault, be thine the care! / Loose me from this evil snare! / Other help is none to pray, / If thy saving grace delay. / Rather had I death besought, / So without deceit I swear, / Since my heart is all distraught / With thy flame enkindled there. / Murmuring is not mine to dare: / I must perish as I may, / If thy saving grace delay. / Love, with gladness meet my prayer, / Cleanse my soul and make it fair, / Since in sorrow I must stay / If thy saving grace delay.