Antony himself was quite besotted
with Cleopatra's sweet speeches, philters, beauty, pleasing tires: for when
she sailed along the river Cydnus, with such incredible pomp in a gilded
ship, herself dressed like Venus, her maids like the Graces, her pages like
so many Cupids, Antony was amazed, and rapt beyond himself." Heliodorus,
_lib. 1._ brings in Dameneta, stepmother to Cnemon, "whom she [5022]saw in
his scarves, rings, robes, and coronet, quite mad for the love of him." It
was Judith's pantofles that ravished the eyes of Holofernes. And
[5023]Cardan is not ashamed to confess, that seeing his wife the first time
all in white, he did admire and instantly love her. If these outward
ornaments were not of such force, why doth [5024]Naomi give Ruth counsel
how to please Boaz? and [5025]Judith, seeking to captivate Holofernes,
washed and anointed herself with sweet ointments, dressed her hair, and put
on costly attires. The riot in this kind hath been excessive in times past;
no man almost came abroad, but curled and anointed,

[5026] "Et matutino suadans Crispinus amomo.
Quantum vix redolent duo funera."

"one spent as much as two funerals at once, and with perfumed hairs,"
[5027]_et rosa canos odorati capillos Assyriaque nardo_. What strange thing
doth [5028]Sueton. relate in this matter of Caligula's riot? And Pliny,
_lib. 12. & 13._ Read more in Dioscorides, Ulmus, Arnoldus, Randoletius _de
fuco et decoratione_; for it is now an art, as it was of old, (so
[5029]Seneca records) _officinae, sunt adores coquentium_. Women are bad
and men worse, no difference at all between their and our times;
[5030]"good manners" (as Seneca complains) "are extinct with wantonness, in
tricking up themselves men go beyond women, they wear harlots' colours, and
do not walk, but jet and dance," _hic mulier, haec vir_, more like players,
butterflies, baboons, apes, antics, than men. So ridiculous, moreover, we
are in our attires, and for cost so excessive, that as Hierome said of old,
_Uno filio villarum insunt pretia, uno lino decies sestertium inseritur_;
'tis an ordinary thing to put a thousand oaks and a hundred oxen into a
suit of apparel, to wear a whole manor on his back. What with shoe-ties,
hangers, points, caps and feathers, scarves, bands, curls, &c., in a short
space their whole patrimonies are consumed. Heliogabalus is taxed by
Lampridius, and admired in his age for wearing jewels in his shoes, a
common thing in our times