The Anatomy of Melancholy

“Beauty worthy of command”: beauty deserves a kingdom, says Abulensis, Paradox 2, chapter 110—and immortality. “More people have gained this honour and eternal life for their beauty than for all other virtues together”; and those who are beautiful “deserve to be honoured by God and men.” For this reason Jupiter carried that Idalian Ganymede into heaven; Hephaestion was dear to Alexander, and Antinous to Hadrian.

For that reason Plato calls beauty a privilege of nature, “the work of nature rejoicing,” nature’s masterpiece, a wordless commentary; Theophrastus, a silent fraud; Carneades, silent rhetoric that persuades without speech, a kingdom without a guard, because beautiful people command like so many captains; Socrates, a tyranny “that tyrannizes over tyrants themselves.” This presumably made Diogenes call handsome women queens, “because men did whatever they ordered”: men were so obedient to their commands.

They will worship, cringe, pay compliments and bow to a common girl, if she is beautiful, as though she were a noblewoman, a countess, a queen or a goddess. Those unrestrained young men of Greece erected a golden statue at Delphi, at immense expense, to preserve the memory of Phryne the courtesan for ever, as Aelian relates. She was so beautiful, Athenaeus says, that Apelles and Praxiteles made their likenesses of Venus from her.

Thus young men worship and honour beauty. Indeed, kings themselves will do it, I say, and willingly submit their sovereignty to a lovely woman. “Wine is strong, kings are strong, but a woman is strongest,” 1 Esdras 4:10, as Zerubbabel proved at length to King Darius, his princes and nobles.

Kings sit at ease and command sea and land, and so forth; everyone pays tribute to the king. But women make kings pay tribute and rule over them. When men have acquired gold and silver, they surrender it all to a beautiful woman, give themselves wholly to her, and gape and gaze at her. All men desire her more than gold, silver or any precious thing. They will leave father and mother and risk their lives for her; labour and travel to earn money and bring all their gains to women; steal, fight and plunder for their mistresses’ sake. No king is so strong that a beautiful woman is not stronger than he.

“Everyone,” he continues, “is afraid to touch the king; yet I saw him with Apame his concubine, the daughter of the famous Bartacus, sitting at the king’s right hand. She took the crown from his head, put it on her own and struck him with her left hand. Yet the king gaped and gazed at her; when she laughed, he laughed; and when she was angry, he flattered her to regain her favour.”

So beauty commands even kings themselves; indeed, whole armies and kingdoms are taken captive along with their kings. “Beauty conquers armed men; beauty takes the sword captive. Those who cannot be conquered in battle will be conquered by looks.”

And it is no small thing, says Xenophon, “and something of which all beautiful people may rightly boast, that a strong man must labour for his living if he is to have anything, a brave man must fight and risk his life for it, and a wise man must speak, display his abilities and toil; but a handsome and beautiful person does it all with ease and obtains what he desires without taking any trouble.”