Although neither male authors nor female authors should be treated as monolithic groups, it is sometimes possible to discern gender-related views and preoccupations by examining side by side pairs of works treating the same subject. In Gabriel Gilbert's treatment of the classical myth of Endymion and Diana the goddess is presented as a powerless victim of ruthless male deities. Only by going into voluntary exile into the underworld can she find autonomy and love. Françoise Pascal, dramatizing the same myth, makes Diana the supreme deity, who picks her own consort and, with the aid of a powerful female magician, imposes physical and psychological trials on him to guarantee his fidelity and submissiveness. Georges de Scudéry, in dramatizing the persecution of a Roman empress and his daughter by a tyrannical Vandal king, celebrates the male chivalric ideal: valiant and courteous knights prevail and save damsels in distress, and even the villain is converted to magnanimity. Antoinette Deshoulières, in her adaptation of the same story, presents a pessimistic world in which the most energetic characters are impervious to virtue and love, while even the noble-hearted characters are weak and unsure of their beliefs.