The Art of Beauty
(Medicamina Faciei Femineae)
Translated by Christopher Kelk
Reclining Venus
Gilles Demarteau (French, 1722 - 1776) - The Rijksmuseum
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Girls, learn how care improves your form and face.
Art bade the sterile furrows to replace
The hungry brambles with the gifts Ceres
Made plain, producing on the apple-trees
Sweet fruit, and trees were grafted that they might
Reap other riches. Tilled lands bring delight.
Gold will enhance our roofs. The black earth lies
Beneath the marble, while with Tyrian dyes
Fleeces are treated, and to works of art
Will India cleft ivory impart. 10
Perhaps the Sabine women in the reign
Of their King Tatius opted to maintain
Their land and not their beauty. As they sat
On high stools, ruddy matrons laboured at
Their spinning, and, as night approached, they penned
The sheep their daughters would by day attend
And cut logs for the fire. But now they spare
Their precious daughters, wanting them to wear
Gilt vestments, flashy jewels, gemstones found
In eastern countries to be draped around 20
Their necks, and earrings too. One mustn’t flee
The urge to please, however, for we see
That nowadays men, too, are beautified:
For husbands have determined to abide
By feminine rules – a bride can scarcely be
Much better dressed. She primps assiduously
To win a beau. But such sophistication
Is not a sin. The same consideration
Is spent upon their hair where women hide
In rustic haunts: deep in the countryside, 30
Though Athos screens them, Athos nonetheless
Will make them elegant. Much happiness
They take in pleasing men; a young girl’s mood
Is raised when she regards her pulchritude;
And Juno’s bird will spread his wings in pride
When they are praised, and thus he will provide
The way to love more than a strong potation
On which a wizard stakes his reputation
With terrifying art, and don’t rely
On herbs or mingled juices; do not try 40
The venom of a mare in heat; and you
Will find a Marsian chant won’t cleave in two
A snake, and rivers will not start to flow
Back to their source, and you’ll see, too, although
You beat Temesa’s brass as much as you may,
The Moon will never be wrested away
From her own steeds. First, study niceties:
With those in place, your face will surely please
And love will follow. Age will get its hooks
In you and lay waste to your pretty looks 50
With wrinkles, and so, as each year will pass,
You’ll be chagrined to look into your glass
And grief will bring more lines. But probity
Will help you, proving its tenacity
As you grow old, and love will yet abide.
Now when your tender limbs are fortified
With sleep, I’ll tell you how you may impress
A man by learning how to incandesce
Your skin. Take off the straw and chaff that hide
The barley that our ships upon the tide 60
Have brought from Libyan fields to Italy.
Take two pounds and an equal quantity
Of vetch soaked in ten eggs. Let it all dry
And then beneath the millstone that is by
The patient donkey worked, let it be ground.
A lusty stag’s first horns you then must pound
In it. One sixth of an as of it then take
And then of it a pulverized mixture make
And sieve it thoroughly, and then add in
Twelve bulbs of narcissi, but you must skin 70
Them first, then pound the mixture vigorously
In a marble mortar. This miscellany
Now needs two ounce of gum and Tuscan wheat,
Eighteen of honey. Should a woman treat
Her face with this, that face will surely shine
More brightly than her mirror. Then combine
Lupins and beans, then bake them. Take six pound
Of each and in the mill let them be ground.
Then add white lead and don’t forget the scum
Of red nitre and the iris which has come 80
From Illyria, and let young arms be used
In kneading it; when it is duly bruised,
One ounce should be the ideal weight. What’s best
For curing spots is what the halcyon’s nest
Is built with. What’s the dose? One ounce apply
In two coequal parts, I’d specify.
So that you may apply it easily,
Add honey from the golden Attic bee.
Though incense soothes angry divinities,
Don’t keep it merely for their litanies. 90
With nitre mix this cure for boils, and see
You use four ounce of each; add from a tree
An ounce of gum, a dab of myrrh; a hand-
-Ful of dried rose-leaves should be added and
Ammoniac gum and incense: coalesce
Some barley-water till you may assess 100
That both the gum and incense weigh the same
As do the rose-leaves. Very soon you’ll claim
A fair complexion. I once saw someplace
A woman rub moist poppies on her face.
The end of The Art of Beauty