virtues of a woman

An ancinet prayer that talks of the virtues of a woman.

I'd like to share it with others of my ilk.
---------------
For I am the first and the last
I am the venerated and the despised
I am the prostitute and the saint
I am the wife and the virgin
I am the mother and the daughter
I am the arms of my mother
I am barren and my children are many
I am the married woman and the spinster
I am the woman who gives birth
And, she who never procreated
I am the consolation for the pain of birth
I am the wife and the husband
And, it was my man who created me
I am the mother of my father
I am the sister of my husband
And, he is my rejected son
Always respect me
For I am the shameful
And, the magnificent one
xxxxxxxxxxx

Hymn to Isis (3rd or 4the century BC)

discovered in Nag Hammadi
*Culled from "Eleven Minutes" by Paulo Coelho of The Alchemist fame