Why are we demanded to employ our minds in shameful or perpetually unuseful ways? What morality is there in despising what is honest? What cause can defend the position that what is honest becomes evil and condemnable once it's within us? Those who have slaves instruct them for their comfort, and those whom nature or custom have made rulers wish us to extinguish all the lights that heaven has placed within us, and to live in the deepest darkness of ignorance. If it is to more easily earn our admiration, they do not reach their goal, for we do not admire what we do not know. If their aim is to make us more obedient, it does not show great nobility. And if it is true that they have a certain control over us, they take no glory in governing individuals who lack intelligence and knowledge, according to them.

You might tell me that not all men are so ruthless towards us, and that some consent to women using their minds in the knowledge of letters as long as women do not compose works themselves. But let those who share this opinion remember that if Mercury and Apollo are of their sex, Minerva and the Muses are of ours. I acknowledge that having received as many gifts from heaven as we have, we ought not to sluggishly engage in this art. Shame, for instance, is not in making verses, but in making poor ones. If my poems had not had the fortune of being liked, I would never have shown them a second time. This shame is not exclusive to us, and anyone who performs badly in something they voluntarily undertake most certainly deserves to be criticized, regardless of their sex. A bad orator, a bad philosopher and a bad poet attain no more glory than a woman who poorly executes all these things. Regardless of sex, one deserves to be criticized when one performs badly and deserves much esteem when one performs well. But to answer the customs and decay of the age, leave all these thorny sciences to those who seek glory through difficult paths. I don’t want to lead you into places where you see nothing pleasant. I don't want you to spend your entire life in the tedious research of these inaccessible secrets. I don't want you to use all your mind purposelessly to know where the winds retreat after causing shipwrecks. And finally, I do not want you to spend the rest of your days philosophizing indifferently.

I love your rest, your glory and your beauty together. I don't want this type of studies for you, ones that give a yellow complexion, sunken eyes, a gaunt face, one that causes wrinkles on the forehead and makes one's mood dark and worrisome. I don't want you to flee the company and the light, but I only want you to follow me to the slopes of Parnassus. It is there, Erinna, that I want to lead you. It is there that you will surpass me as soon as you arrive. It is there that you will attain a beauty that time, years, fashions, old age, and even death cannot steal from you. And it is finally there that you will fully understand that our gender is capable of accomplishing everything it undertakes. 

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