The Anatomy of Melancholy

Artificial attractions of love and incitements to lust Gestures Clothes Dowry and so on

Natural beauty is itself a stronger lodestone, as you have heard: a great temptation, piercing to the very heart. “The sight of a modest maiden’s beauty has wounded me.” But it is much stronger still when joined by those artificial enticements and provocations—gestures, clothes, jewels, cosmetics and ornaments—and by favourable circumstances of time and place, any one of which could produce this effect by itself.

Some wise men have much debated the question, “Does beauty owe more to art or to nature?” Are natural or artificial attractions more powerful? It remains undecided. For my part, I think that although beauty itself is a strong inducement, shining splendidly “amid filth,” in beggary—like a jewel on a dungheap, which still shines and casts its rays, and cannot be concealed, as Heliodorus relates of Chariclea even in beggar’s clothes—yet, as things are managed, artifice has greater power and deserves much preference.

So Aegle thinks herself well toothed With purchased bone and Indian ivory; So Lycoris, darker than a falling mulberry, Admires herself coated in white lead.

So toothless Aegle thinks herself pretty, Decked with newly bought teeth of Indian ivory; So ugly Lycoris, blacker than a berry, Admires herself, now fairer than a cherry.

John Léry of Burgundy, in chapter 8 of his History of a Voyage to Brazil, is entirely on my side. “When we arrived in Brazil,” he says, “we found both men and women as naked as at birth, without any covering, even over their private parts; and our Frenchmen, who lived with them for a year, could not persuade them to wear any. Many will think that our prolonged association with naked women must have been a great incitement to lust.” But he concludes otherwise: their nakedness stirred lust far less than our women’s clothes.

“And I boldly affirm,” he says, “that those glittering outfits, artificial colours, headdresses, curled hair, pleated coats, cloaks, gowns, costly bodice panels, trimmed and loose garments, and all those other accessories by which our countrywomen fabricate beauty and so elaborately display themselves cause more mischief of this kind than that barbarian simplicity, although those women are in no way inferior to ours in beauty. I could prove this by many other arguments, but I appeal to my companions at the time, who were all of the same opinion.”

His countryman Montaigne, in his Essays, agrees, as do many others. From their assertions we may briefly conclude that beauty owes more to art than to nature, and that outward ornaments provoke more strongly than the attractions nature supplies.

It is true that those lovely, sparkling eyes, white neck, coral lips, swelling breasts, rose-coloured cheeks and so on are powerful enticements in themselves. But when an attractive, artful, carefully composed expression, a pleasing gesture and a studied bearing are added, the effect must be far stronger. Add elaborate needlework, varied colours, the finest dyes, jewels, spangles, pendants, lawn, lace, gauzes, fine white linen, embroidery, curled hair, ointments and so on, and they will turn even the dowdiest woman into a goddess, when art assists nature.