Christine de Pizan (1364-?1430) was the first French woman poet to make
her living by the pen, and the first female interpreter of classical
myths; she held enormous power in the French court and influenced late
medieval culture in France and in England in a number of ways. The
Letter of Othea to Hector, her most popular work, is a series of a
hundred verse texts about a mythological figure or moment, with prose
moral glosses explaining how to readthe myth in order to improve human
character. It is translated here with introduction, notes, and
interpretative essay.