On the Nobility and Excellence of the Female Sex

...confident that the book would not lose its mistress original: "suam dominam." Agrippa refers to Princess Margaret of Austria, the intended recipient of the manuscript..

Now, therefore, having returned to this my fatherland, I thought it right to keep my word, and that the offering of that book to our princess should be delayed no longer; for it is owed to her by most just right through agreement and vow. And so that she may know that in the intervening time I have neither forgotten her, nor ever abandoned my devoted faith, nor that the wickedness of others has been more powerful with me than the constancy of my own mind, which favors her virtues and praises immensely.

If now your prudence does not disapprove of this plan of mine, I will see to it that this little book comes out into the public along with many others of mine, even though I see how small this matter is, and with how little elegance of speech it has been rendered. But I wish this little book—once written in my youth Agrippa was about twenty-three when he first drafted this work in 1509. and now only revised here and there, as you see in this hurried copy—to be offered to its own princess (as is the custom of speaking among those they call Canonists Experts in Canon Law, the ecclesiastical law of the Catholic Church.) "from now as if from then" original: "ex nunc ut a tunc." A legal term meaning that an action taken now should be treated as if it had happened at the earlier intended time; essentially, a retroactive dedication., even if it be offered at the cost of my reputation.

While in the meantime, now that I am older, I shall prepare more sublime and worthy things for her highness, with a weightier and fuller argument. Nor indeed would I want the Princess herself to measure my talent by these trifles of my youth; which, if she wishes to test it, could be of use to her even in the greatest matters of both peace and war.

Furthermore, lest anyone more arrogant or boastful of their learning, out of contempt for my mediocrity and ungrateful toward my talent, despise, slander, bite, or tear apart this work of mine, I commend this same work to your Magnanimity, to be guarded and defended, along with the splendor of female nobility and the glory of womanly excellence. And I hope that I shall easily obtain pardon for this cause—that I have preferred women to men—because I wrote these things for so great a Princess, and published them with your Greatness encouraging and protecting me. Farewell.

From Antwerp. April 16 original: "xvi. Kalendas Maij." In the Roman calendar, the 16th day before the Kalends (1st) of May is April 16th., 1529.

I shall await your judgment.