A virago is a woman who demonstrates abundant masculine virtues. The word comes from the Latin word virāgō (genitive case virāginis) meaning "vigorous maiden"
Modern use of the word virago generally takes the disparaging sense. Thus virago joined such as termagant,[Jane Tibbetts Schulenburg. Forgetful of their sex: female sanctity and society, ca. 500–1100. University Of Chicago Press, 2001. Page 50. .]
History
Historically, the concept of a virago reaches back into antiquity where Hellenistic philosophy asserted that elite and exceptionally heroic men had
virtus ().
Virtus (once again linked to
vir, the brave man abiding by society's highest values and ethics as opposed to
homo, human being) defined the traits of excellence for a man in ancient Rome (and Greece), including valor and heroism, but also morality and physical strength. Women and non-elite or unheroic men (slaves, servants, craftsmen, merchants) were considered a lesser category, and believed to be less excellent in
Mos maiorum. A woman, however, if exceptional enough could earn the title
virago. In doing so, she surpassed the expectations for what was believed possible for her
gender, and embodied masculine-like aggression
and/or excellence. Virago, then, was a title of respect and admiration. In
Christianity, a
nun or holy woman who had become equal in divinity to male
monks through practiced
celibacy, exemplary religious practice and devotion, and intact
virginity, was considered to have surpassed the limitations of her femaleness and was called
virago.
Latin writer Firmicus Maternus in the 4th century CE describes virago as women who take on a man's character and desire intercourse with women like men.
Standard modern dictionaries define virago as either, in order of definition, (1) a "loud overbearing woman"; a "shrew".
Vulgate Bible
The
Vulgate Bible, translated by
Jerome and others in the 4th century C.E., was an early Latin translation of the Hebrew Bible
Hebrew Bible. In Genesis 2:23, Jerome uses the words
Vir for man and
Virago for "woman" attempting to reproduce a pun on "male" and "female" (
ish and
ishah) that existed in the Hebrew text.
[Saint Jerome, Robert Hayward. Saint Jerome's Hebrew questions on Genesis. Oxford University Press, USA (August 10, 1995) Page 113. ][Helen Kraus. Gender Issues in Ancient and Reformation Translations of Genesis 1-4. Oxford University Press, USA (December 17, 2011). Page 182. ]
The Vulgate reads:
Dixitque Adam hoc nunc os ex ossibus meis et caro de carne mea haec vocabitur virago quoniam de viro sumpta est.
"And Adam said: This now is bone of my bones, and flesh of my flesh; she shall be called woman, because she was taken out of man."
The Middle English poem Cursor Mundi retains the Latin name for the woman in its otherwise Middle English account of the creation:
Quen sco was broght be-for adam, Virago he gaf her to nam; þar for hight sco virago, ffor maked of the man was sco. (lines 631–34)
"When she was brought before Adam, Virago was the name he gave to her; Therefore she is called Virago, For she was made out of the man."
See also
Bibliography
-
Ernst Breisach, Caterina Sforza; A Renaissance virago, Chicago usw.: University Press 1967
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Elizabeth D. Carney,"Olympias and the Image of the Virago" in: Phoenix, Vol. 47, No. 1 (Spring, 1993), pp. 29–55
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Morris, Richard. Cursor Mundi: A Northumbrian Poem of the XIV Century. London: Oxford UP, 1874. Republished 1961.
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Barbara Newman. From virile woman to womanChrist: studies in medieval religion and literature. University of Pennsylvania Press (January 1, 1995)
-
Jane Tibbetts Schulenburg. Forgetful of their sex: female sanctity and society, ca. 500-1100. University Of Chicago Press (January 1, 2001)
-
Yenna Wu, The Chinese virago : a literary theme, Cambridge, Mass. u.a. : Harvard Univ. Press, 1995.
-
Schleiner, Winfried. ""Divina Virago": Queen Elizabeth as an Amazon." Studies in Philology 75, no. 2 (1978): 163–80. Accessed June 28, 2020. www.jstor.org/stable/4173965.
