forma bonum mortalibus,
------exigui donum breve temporis,"

it will not last. As that fair flower [5730]Adonis, which we call an
anemone, flourisheth but one month, this gracious all-commanding beauty
fades in an instant. It is a jewel soon lost, the painter's goddess, _fulsa
veritas_, a mere picture. "Favour is deceitful, and beauty is vanity,"
Prov. xxxi. 30.

[5731] "Vitrea gemmula, fluxaque bullula, candida forma est,
Nix, rosa, fumus, ventus et aura, nihil."

"A brittle gem, bubble, is beauty pale,
A rose, dew, snow, smoke, wind, air, nought at all."

If she be fair, as the saying is, she is commonly a fool: if proud,
scornful, _sequiturque superbia formam_, or dishonest, _rara est concordia
formae, atque pudicitiae_, "can she be fair and honest too?" [5732] Aristo,
the son of Agasicles, married a Spartan lass, the fairest lady in all
Greece next to Helen, but for her conditions the most abominable and
beastly creature of the world. So that I would wish thee to respect, with
[5733]Seneca, not her person but qualities. "Will you say that's a good
blade which hath a gilded scabbard, embroidered with gold and jewels? No,
but that which hath a good edge and point, well tempered metal, able to
resist." This beauty is of the body alone, and what is that, but as [5734]
Gregory Nazianzen telleth us, "a mock of time and sickness?" or as
Boethius, [5735]"as mutable as a flower, and 'tis not nature so makes us,
but most part the infirmity of the beholder." For ask another, he sees no
such matter: _Dic mihi per gratias quails tibi videtur_, "I pray thee tell
me how thou likest my sweetheart," as she asked her sister in Aristenaetus,
[5736]"whom I so much admire, methinks he is the sweetest gentleman, the
properest man that ever I saw: but I am in love, I confess (_nec pudet
fateri_) and cannot therefore well judge." But be she fair indeed,
golden-haired, as Anacreon his Bathillus, (to examine particulars) she have
[5737]_Flammeolos oculos, collaque lacteola_, a pure sanguine complexion,
little mouth, coral lips, white teeth, soft and plump neck, body, hands,
feet, all fair and lovely to behold, composed of all graces, elegances, an
absolute piece,

[5738] "Lumina sint Melitae Junonia, dextra Minervae,
Mamillae Veneris, sura maris dominae," &c.

Let [5739]her head be from Prague, paps out of Austria, belly from France,
back from Brabant, hands out of England, feet from Rhine, butto