Works, vol 3 | Page 8

Aphrodite, to whom he has compared Brises' daughter with far less
reason. So far we may trust our sculptors and painters and poets: but for
her crowning glory, for the grace--nay, the choir of Graces and Loves
that encircle her--who shall portray them?

Poly. This was no earthly vision, Lycinus; surely she must have
dropped from the clouds.--And what was she doing?
Ly. In her hands was an open scroll; half read (so I surmised) and half
to be read. As she passed, she was making some remark to one of her
company; what it was I did not catch. But when she smiled, ah! then,
Polystratus, I beheld teeth whose whiteness, whose unbroken regularity,
who shall describe? Imagine a lovely necklace of gleaming pearls, all
of a size; and imagine those dazzling rows set off by ruby lips. In that
glimpse, I realized what Homer meant by his 'carven ivory.' Other
women's teeth differ in size; or they project; or there are gaps: here, all
was equality and evenness; pearl joined to pearl in unbroken line. Oh,
'twas a wondrous sight, of beauty more than human.
Poly. Stay. I know now whom you mean, as well from your description
as from her nationality. You said that there were eunuchs in her train?
Ly. Yes; and soldiers too.
Poly. My simple friend, the lady you have been describing is a celebrity,
and possesses the affections of an Emperor.
Ly. And her name?
Poly. Adds one more to the list of her charms; for it is the same as that
of Abradatas's wife. [Footnote: See Panthea in Notes.] You know
Xenophon's enthusiastic account of that beautiful and virtuous
woman?--you have read it a dozen times.
Ly. Yes; and every time I read it, it is as if she stood before me. I
almost hear her uttering the words the historian has put into her mouth,
and see her arming her husband and sending him forth to battle.
Poly. Ah, my dear Lycinus, this lady has passed you but once, like a
lightning flash; and your praises, I perceive, are all for those external
charms that strike the eye. You are yet a stranger to her nobility of soul;
you know not that higher, more god-like beauty. I am her
fellow-countryman, I know her, and have conversed with her many

times. You are aware that gentleness, humanity, magnanimity, modesty,
culture, are things that I prize more than beauty-and rightly; to do
otherwise would be as absurd as to value raiment above the body.
Where physical perfection goes hand-in-hand with spiritual excellence,
there alone (as I maintain) is true beauty. I could show you many a
woman whose outward loveliness is marred by what is within; who has
but to open her lips, and beauty stands confessed a faded, withered
thing, the mean, unlovely handmaid of that odious mistress, her soul.
Such women are like Egyptian temples: the shrine is fair and stately,
wrought of costly marble, decked out with gilding and painting: but
seek the God within, and you find an ape--an ibis--a goat--a cat. Of
how many women is the same thing true! Beauty unadorned is not
enough: and her true adornments are not purple and jewels, but those
others that I have mentioned, modesty, courtesy, humanity, virtue and
all that waits on virtue.
Ly. Why then, Polystratus, you shall give me story for story, good
measure, shaken together, out of your abundance: paint me the portrait
of her soul, that I may be no more her half-admirer.
Poly. This will be no light task, my friend. It is one thing to commend
what all the world can see, and quite another to reveal what is hidden. I
too shall want help with my portrait. Nor will sculptors and painters
suffice me: I must have philosophers; it is by their canons that I must
adjust the proportions of the figure, if I am to attain to the perfection of
ancient models.
To begin then. Of her clear, liquid voice Homer might have said, with
far more truth than of aged Nestor's, that
honey from those lips distilled.
The pitch, exquisitely soft, as far removed from masculine bass as from
ultra-feminine treble, is that of a boy before his voice breaks; sweet,
seductive, suavely penetrating; it ceases, and still vibrating murmurs
play, echo-like, about the listener's ears, and Persuasion leaves her
honeyed track upon his mind. But oh! the joy, to hear her sing, and sing
to the lyre's accompaniment. Let swans and halcyons and cicalas then

be mute. There is no music like hers; Philomela's self, 'full-throated
songstress' though she be, is all unskilled beside her. Methinks Orpheus
and Amphion, whose spell drew even lifeless things to hear them,
would have dropped their lyres and stood listening in silence to that
voice. What should