A filthy rogue, an ugly hussy, a crooked carcass, a slattern, a witch, a rotten post, a hedge-stake can be dressed and decked out to look as fair and inspire as much love as the rest. Many a foolish fellow is caught in this way. One calls it “lust’s first snare”; Bossus calls it “a snare for souls, a deadly reed”—a fatal reed, the greatest go-between; “a powerful enticement, to be lamented with tears of blood,” says Matenesius, and with tears of blood to be deplored.

This does not mean that becoming clothes and customary ornaments should be condemned. Here, as in other things, there is a propriety and fitness worth observing, suited to different people and their stations. When a style of dress is generally accepted, the person who refuses the fashion is merely eccentric, like an old figure in a tapestry. But when people are so eager for novelty, so changeable, so extravagant in their dress—beyond their means and fortunes, unsuited to their age, position, rank and condition—what else should we think of them?

Why do they adorn themselves with so many plant colours, artificial flowers, elaborate needlework, ingenious designs, sweet perfumes, and the priceless wealth of precious stones—pearls, rubies, diamonds, emeralds, and so on? Why do they crown themselves with gold and silver, wear coronets and headdresses of various fashions, and deck themselves with pendants, bracelets, earrings, chains, belts, rings, pins, spangles, embroidery, shading headwear, stiff collars and many-coloured ribbons? Why do they make such splendid displays with scarves, feathers, fans, masks, furs, lace, gauze, ruffs, falling collars, hairnets, cuffs, damask, velvet, glittering fabrics, cloth of gold and silver, and tissue? With the colours of the heavens, stars and planets, and all the resources of metals, stones, scents, flowers, birds, beasts, fish, and whatever Africa, Asia, America, sea, land, art and human industry can supply?

Why do they use and crave such novel inventions and newfangled headdresses, spending incalculable sums on them? “What are those curled, false locks and painted faces for,” as the satirist asks, “and that carefully studied walk, without a step out of place?” Why, like so many Sybarites, or Nero’s Poppaea, or Ahasuerus’s concubines, do they spend so much money and time dressing—as long as Caesar took to marshal his army, or a hawk takes to preen? “While they prepare, while they adorn themselves, a year goes by.” A gardener takes less pleasure and trouble over his garden, a horseman over grooming his horse and polishing his armour, a sailor over his ship, a merchant over his shop and accounts, than they take over their faces and all their other parts. Such raising themselves on cork soles, such squeezing themselves with whalebone! What is it for but to make young men swoop towards them, as a day-net catches larks?

Philocharus, a gallant in Aristaenetus, warned his friend Polyaenus to beware of such enticements: it was the pleasing sound and movement of his mistress’s spangles and bracelets, and the scent of her ointments, that first captivated him.

That was the first downfall of my mind.

“What is the purpose of this crowd of boxes?” asks Lucian. “What use are pins, pots, mirrors, ointments, curling irons, combs, bodkins and setting-sticks? Why do they spend their entire inheritances and their husbands’ yearly incomes on such follies?” “Two estates on each ear!” “Why do they wear dragons, wasps and snakes as chains and enamelled jewels on their necks and ears? Those hands would deserve better to be bound in iron; would that their necklaces really were snakes!” Some of them would have more need of iron chains in Bedlam, a whip instead of a fan, and haircloth next to their skin; instead of embroidered shifts, their cheeks branded with a hot iron. I mean some of our Jezebels: that would be their due, instead of face-paint.

But why all this labour, expense, preparation, riding and running about, all these goods brought from afar and bought so dearly? Why, because they want to be beautiful and fine, and to supply by art whatever nature lacks.

She who has no natural blush is rosy through art. (Ovid.)

To that end they anoint and paint their faces, making a Helen out of a Hecuba, and a Europa out of “a little, newly grown girl.” To that end they squeeze their feet and bodies, hurting and tormenting themselves: sometimes in loose clothes, with a hundred yards, I think, in a gown or a sleeve; then again so tight that “they reveal the naked limbs.” Now long tails and trains, then short; up, down, high, low, thick, thin, and so on. Now little collars or none, then collars as big as cartwheels; now loose bodices, then huge farthingales and tight girdling, and so on. What is it all for but to intoxicate someone, like the prostitute in Proverbs? One therefore calls it “a trap for the eyes and a sign of lust”—lust’s trap and a sure sign of it, as an ivy-bush marks a tavern.

Glycere, since you take your beauty from a box, And carefully arrange your hair; Since diamonds shine on your fingers, beryl in your ear— I am no prophet, but I know what you desire.

O Glycere, since you paint yourself so much, And deck your hair in such an ordered way, With rings on fingers, bracelets in your ear, Though no prophet, I can tell, I fear.

To be admired, to be gazed at, to ensnare some novice—as they often do, so that instead of a lady he loves a cap and feather; instead of a young woman with “a natural complexion, a firm body full of vitality,” as Chaerea describes his mistress in the poet, he loves a painted face, a ruff, fine white linen, a coronet, a flower—

(And thinks the craftsman’s work is nature’s.)

He dotes on an embroidered waistcoat or a many-coloured petticoat: a fine dye instead of a fine woman. For generally, as with richly furred rabbits, their coverings are far better than their bodies; and, like the bark of a cinnamon tree, worth more than its whole trunk, their outward equipment is far more precious than their inward qualities. It is all too commonly so.