The Anatomy of Melancholy

In such people, faults are no faults. For when this same Alcibiades stole Anytus’s gold and silver plate, Anytus was so far from prosecuting such a shameful deed—though everyone else condemned the impudence and insolence—that he wished it had been more, and much better, for his darling’s sake: he loved him dearly.

No worth stands out in such lovely people; every imperfection is hidden. “For we do not readily suspect ugliness in those whom we love most.” Hearing, sight, touch and the rest—our mind and all our senses are captivated: “A beautiful person delights every sense.”

Many men have been advanced for their looks alone, and chosen as kings, as among the Indians, Persians and Ethiopians of old. The handsomest man the country could offer was elected its sovereign lord: “Virtue is more pleasing when it comes from a beautiful body.” Many other nations have thought and acted in the same way, as Curtius observes: “For great reverence attaches to bodily majesty.” Such men have a majestic presence.

So deeply did they adore beauty that no man was thought fit to reign unless he was perfect and outstanding in every part. Agis, king of Sparta, nearly lost his throne because he married a short woman: they would not have their royal offspring deteriorate.

Who would ever have thought that Adrian IV, an English monk’s bastard—as Papirius Masson writes in his life—“destitute, abandoned by his own family, dirty and wretched,” a poor forsaken child, would ever become pope of Rome? But why did it happen? “He had a keen intellect, ready eloquence, a fine body and a cheerful, pleasant face”—as Masson goes on to say, taking it from William of Newburgh, for he ploughs with another man’s heifer.

He was wise, learned and eloquent, with a pleasant, promising expression: a fine, handsome man. In a word, he had a winning look of his own, and that won the day: it was chiefly for that that he was advanced. So “Saul was a fine and handsome person”; Maximinus was elected emperor; and so on.

Branchus was Apollo’s son by Jance, Sucron’s daughter, says Lactantius, conceived when Apollo kept King Admetus’s herds in Thessaly. Now grown to manhood, he begged his mother to tell him who his father was. The nymph refused, because Apollo had bound her by oath not to reveal it; but his persistence overcame her, and at last she sent him to his father.

When he entered Apollo’s presence, “reverently kissing the god’s cheeks,” he behaved so well and was so handsome a young man that Apollo was utterly captivated by his beauty. He could scarcely take his eyes off him, said that he was worthy of such parents, gave him a golden crown and the gift of prophecy, and finally made him a demigod.

O proud power of beauty! Beauty is a goddess whom the very gods adore, “for the gods love the beautiful.” She is “the mistress of love,” love’s forerunner, love’s lodestone, a witch, a charm, and so on. Beauty is a dowry in itself, a sufficient inheritance, a generous recommendation, a carefully written letter—as Lucian, Apuleius, Tiraqueau and others conclude.