The Anatomy of Melancholy

Who would believe it? Girls make laughter an art, Seeking a pleasing grace in that as well.

And it is as powerful an enticement as any of the rest:

——a girl smiled sweetly: Does your heart beat as it should?——

She makes your heart leap with her pleasing, gentle smile.

I shall love Lalage, sweetly laughing, Sweetly speaking,

I love Lalage as much for smiling as for talking. “Delighted, she smiled so sweetly,” as the man in Petronius said of his mistress: pleased, she gave such a sweet smile. It won over Ismenias, as he confesses: “Ismene smiled amorously.” The second time I saw her, Ismene smiled so lovingly that I could not help admiring her. And Galla’s sweet smile quite overcame Faustus the shepherd:

Looking at me, she smiled sweetly, her eyes playing.

All other bodily gestures can have as much effect. “Daphnis in Lucian was a poor ragged girl when I first knew her,” said Corbile, “in tatters and rags; but now she is a splendid creature indeed, with maids to attend her, fine clothes, money in her purse, and so on. Would you know how this happened? By presenting herself in the best fashion, by her pleasing manner, friendliness, and sweet smiles for everyone.”

Many women fall for a man simply because of his courtesies and good manners; they are won in an instant. They are too ready to believe that every frivolous, wanton suitor who sees or courts them is instantly in love: surely he adores and admires them; surely he will marry them. Yet nothing is further from his intention: this is his usual behaviour in all such company.

So both deceive each other by such outward displays. Among these, an upright and graceful bearing, curtsies, gentle greetings, bows, a mincing gait, and a becoming, studied walk are powerful enticements. The prophet Isaiah, himself a courtier and a keen observer, reproached the daughters of Zion for these in 3:16: “They minced as they walked, and made a tinkling with their feet.” To tell the truth, what can they not accomplish by such means?

While nature dresses them in the finest clothes Of youth and beauty, which the world admires,

She sets us on fire—with voice, hand, step, Breast, brow and eyes.

When art is added to beauty, when tricks and deceits work together—for, to speak plainly, love is a kind of sleight of hand, mere trickery, a bewitchment—when they show their lovely hand, fine foot and leg, “they leave us with a great longing for them,” says Baldassare Castiglione in book 1: they set us longing. So too when they lift their petticoats and outer clothes, as they commonly do to show their fine stockings of the richest dyed silk, gold fringes, lace and embroidery—they will take care, when going to church or anywhere else, that everything is seen—it is merely a snare to catch fools. As Chrysostom tells them bluntly, “Though they say nothing with their mouths, they speak in their walk, they speak with their eyes, they speak through the bearing of their bodies.”

And what else can we say of their baring their necks, shoulders, breasts, arms and wrists? What purpose does it serve except to tempt men to lust?