More beautiful than Phoebus and Phoebus’s sister.

His Phoebe is so beautiful, so bright, She dims the sun’s brilliance and the moon’s light.

Stars, suns, moons, metals, fragrant flowers, scents, perfumes, colours, gold, silver, ivory, pearls, precious stones, snow, brightly coloured birds, doves, honey, sugar and spice cannot describe her: so soft, so tender, so radiant, sweet and beautiful is she.

Softer than a rabbit’s fur.

Beautiful Lydia, fair girl, You far surpass milk and the lily, The white rose and the red alike, And polished Indian ivory.

Lovely Lydia, my mistress, white and fair, Neither milk nor lily comes near you; The rose so white, the rose so red to see, And Indian ivory fall short of you.

Our English Homer gives just such a description of a beautiful lady:

That Emily who was fairer to see Than a lily on its green stalk, And fresher than May with its new flowers— Her complexion rivalled the rose in colour; I do not know which of the two was fairer.

In just this language Polyphemus courts Galatea:

Galatea, whiter than the petal of snow-white privet, More blooming than a meadow, taller than a long alder, Brighter than glass, friskier than a tender young kid, Softer than swan’s down and curdled milk.

Galatea, whiter than white bindweed, Fresher than a field, taller than a tree, Brighter than glass, friskier than a kid, Softer than swan’s down or anything else.

And she admires him in return, in that witty dialogue of Lucian which Johannes Secundus, an elegant modern Dutch poet, translated into verse. When Doris and the other sea-nymphs reproached her for her ugly, misshapen lover Polyphemus, she replied that they spoke out of envy and malice:

And plainly it seems to be sheer envy that drives you to this: That Polyphemus does not love you as he loves me.

Whatever they might say, he was a handsome man. And as Heloise wrote to her sweetheart Peter Abelard, “If Augustus, emperor of the world, sought me as his wife, I would rather be your whore than empress of the world”: she would rather be his slave, his mistress, than the world’s empress or queen.

Not even if Jupiter himself should happen to desire me.

She would not exchange her lover for Jupiter himself.

To your mind she is a most loathsome creature. But once, when a country fellow disparaged Zeuxis’s exquisite painting of Helen because he saw no such beauty in it, Nicomachus, a lovesick spectator, replied, “Take my eyes and you will think her a goddess.” Take my eyes: you will immediately dote on her, count all her vices virtues, and think her imperfections and infirmities absolute perfection.

If her nose is flat, she is lovely; if hooked, regal; if she is dwarfish and little, pretty; if tall, handsome and manly—our valiant British Boudicca; if crooked, wise; if monstrous, comely. Her defects are no defects at all: she has no deformities. “Indeed, even the beloved’s own shit does not stink.” Though she is as filthy and disgusting as Sostratus’s bitch or Parmeno’s sow, though you would as willingly have a snake in your bosom or a toad in your dish, and call her witch, devil and hag, with every filthy name you can invent, he, on the other hand, admires her. She is his idol, lady, mistress, little Venus, queen, the essence of beauty, an angel, a star, a goddess.

You are my Vesta, you are my goddess; Your only hallowed temple is my heart.

The fragrance of a thousand courtesans is in her face. “This is no portrait of lovely Venus or Stratonice.” That is not a picture of Venus or the Spanish Infanta, as you suppose, good sir—no princess or king’s daughter. No, no: it is his divine mistress, indeed, his dainty Dulcinea, his dear Antiphila, to whose service he is wholly consecrated, the only one he adores.

Compared with her, a peacock would be ugly, A squirrel unlovable, and a phoenix commonplace.

Compared with her a peacock is unsightly, A squirrel unappealing, a phoenix too common.

All graces, charms of love, refinements and pleasures attend her. He prefers her to ten thousand ladies of the court.

Whoever praises Phyllis or Nerea, Or Amaryllis or Galatea, Tityrus or Meliboea—by your leave, Let him be silent: let this lover’s beloved have the praise.

Indeed, he prefers her to all the gods and goddesses themselves. So Quintus Catulus admired his cross-eyed friend Roscius:

With your leave, heavenly ones, let me say it: A mortal seemed more beautiful than a god.

By your leave, gentle gods, I shall speak truly: Not one of you has so beautiful a face.

He bestows upon her every inflated epithet and passionate description—incomparably beautiful, exquisitely neat, divine, sweet, dainty, delicious—and pretty diminutive, “little heart,” “little kiss,” and every fond name that can be invented: bird, mouse, lamb, puss, pigeon, pig’s eye, kid, honey, love, dove, chick and so on.

My honey, my sweetness, my heart, My little kiss, my delight.

My life, my light, my jewel, my glory, “beautiful Margaret, beside whom all the precious things of the world are worthless”; my sweet Margaret, my only delight and darling. And as Rodomont courted Isabella:

With every kind word and gesture in his power, He calls her his dear heart, his only beloved, His joyful comfort and his sweet delight, His mistress and his goddess, and the names That loving knights bestow upon lovely ladies.

Every garment she wears, every fashion pleases him beyond measure; her hand—