Port Tobacco times, and Charles County advertiser. (Port Tobacco, Md.) 1845-1898, 1872-05-24
woman's Worth and orthlessness.

every literature is full. All along the
pages of history, of poetry, Of romance.
they meet in striking contrast. The Pen
tateuch makes her the author of all the
woes that have befallen man. But for
Ewes tempting her lord and master, the
roses would have been thornless and the
earth would have put forth its golden
fruitage without toll. Unknown to Mos
es, Hesiod found also in woman the source
of man. ruin. From her, he says, lis
a pernicous race, and tribes of women
a great source of hurt-dwelt along with
mortal man" Angry at trick which
had been played upou him. Jupiter COM
manded the fre-god Hephaistos to mould
from clay the figure of beautiful maiden,
Minerva to endow herswith artistic know
ledge. Venus to give her beauty, and
Mercury to inspire her with an impudent
and artful disposition to cozen, to deceive,
toruin all with whom she came in contact.
Thus fashioned, she was brought BY the
latter god to the dwelling of Epimethus,
and was named Pandora, the all gifted"
Hesiod tells US that through her man was
speedily plunged into woes irremediable,
for in the Keeping of Epimethus was a
closed jar which she had been forbidden
to open. Would any Pandora. ancient
or modern. resist the temptation of touch
ing forbidden ground? The result was.
out of this jar descended that Iliad of
woes the echo of whose pains and mise
ries shall resound through unending time.
The concurrent testimony of later Greek
poets accords with the author of the The
ogony. Milton, whose experience was
more with the worthlessness than the
worth of women, has taken the burden
from Hesiod's lips, In the Finnish epic
of "Wainamoinen' we find Ilmarian fash
ioning himself wife out of silver and
gold. But when, after immense trouble,
be succeeds in breathing the breath of life
into his handiwork, he finds that wherever
his body touches that of his golden bride
it becomes intensely cold, and in despair
he proposes to pass over this undesirable
possession to Wainamoinen, who refuses
the gift with the advice that he had better
take her where gold is in more request.
These, however, are EXCEPTIONS. The
poets have more frequently tuned their
harps to strains of adulation, and have
rung Its changes through all TIE ages in
an endless refrain. In the face of evil
minded Pandoras, we have the conjugal
tenderness that bound the hearts Of Hec-
tor and Andromache, the years of patient
waiting-the dreary gazing over stormy
seas which Penelope endured before her
wandering spouse was given back to her
loving arms again, the heroic death Of
Polyxenax. the calm resignation of Iphi
genia, and hundreds of other examples
attesting the high consideration in which
women were held. And yet the actual
position of women of real worth was in
many respects far inferior to women of
utter worthlessness. Into that life Of
broad and generous culture which distin-
guished the elimination of Grecian civili-
zation, this latter class alone had free ac-
cess. They were the chosen companions
of all her men of intellect, whose wives
were buried in the obscurity of their
homes and deprived of all male society
but that of the husband alone. The Aph-
rodite, the incarnation of beauty, was
modelled from a courtesan. Phryne was
produced time and again by the cunning
skill of Praditelles; and her statue, carv
ed in gold, stood in the temple of Apollo
at Delphi. When she was accused of
corrupting the youth of Athens, her ad-
vocate, Hyperides, acquitted her by un-
yelling her rare beauty before the dazed
eyes Of her judges. In Appelles, Laishat.
at once lover and a painter, and the
grandest delineator of flower. pieces of
antiquity, acquired his skill through his
passion for the fower-girl, Glycera. The
names of Cleopatra and Aspasia have en-
tered into all poetic literature. Socrates
did not disdain to sit at the feet of the
latter, and her thronged chambers are the
first to occur to the mind in recalling the
ancient glory of the Athenian republic.
If the Grecian philosopher found no com
fort at his own freside, the sharp tongue
of Zantippe did not deter him from seek
ing the presence Of females whose morals
were as frail as their tongues were dulcet.
Xenophon tells US that, attracted by the
beauty of the courtesan Theodota, Socra-
tes deigned to give her advice regarding
the manner to be pursued in attracting
her lovers more firmly to her. Even
when we leave the atmosphere of Greek
culture we find the same manners in force;
and the maxim of Rochefaucauld, that
1.-The greater number of good women are
like concealed treasures-safe, as no one
has searched for them," is as bitter as it
is true. The institution of chivalry, a.
round which romance and song have woven
so many garlands, made no recogizance
of woman's virtue, and the far-famed
troubadours had but one synonym for love,
and that was lust. Bossuet and Fenelon
unblushingly entered the drawing-rooms
of Ninon de PEnclos, and found pleasure
in the conversation of that most notorious
specimen of womanly worthlessness; and
when the story Of the present shall have
passed into tradition, historians in years
to come will no doubt have to record of
n 70 noofc and pbilocnphnrc of to odou that