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Chapter 16

Portraits of Ladies

Phalantus and Artesia make their appearance carrying pictures of ladies whose defenders have failed to uphold their beauty. These ladies include Andromana, Artaxia, Erona, Helen, Parthenia, and Urania. The pictures do not succeed in showing the ladies to advantage. (1593 ed. 30v.26)

So passing their time according to their will, they waited for the coming of Phalantus. The next morning, having already caused his tents to be pitched near to a fair tree close to the lodge, he had hung a shield upon the tree, which the defendant should strike, and that would call him to maintain his challenge. The device in the shield was a heaven full of stars, with a speech signifying that it was the beauty which gave it the praise.

Philantus himself came in next after a triumphant chariot, made of carnation-velvet, enriched with purple and pearl, wherein Artesia sat, drawn by four winged horses with artificial flaming mouths, and flaming wings, as if she had newly borrowed them from Phoebus. Before her marched, two after two, certain footmen pleasantly attired who, between them, held one picture after another of those who, because Phalantus ran well, had lost the prize in the race of beauty. At every pace the footmen paused, turning the pictures to each side so leisurely that they might be discerned with perfect judgment.

They came in following the order in which they were won. The first was the picture of Andromana, queen of Iberia, whom a Laconian knight had some time (and with her special favor) served, though some years since returned home, having defended her with more gratefulness than good fortune. But therein fortune had borrowed wit, for indeed she was not comparable to Artesia, not because she was a good deal older (for time had not yet been able to impoverish her store), but because her exceedingly red hair with small eyes did (like ill companions) disgrace the other assembly of most commendable beauties.

Next after her was borne the portrait of the princess of Elis, a lady that taught the beholders no other point of beauty but this, that as liking is not always the child of beauty, so whatever one likes is beautiful, for in that visage there was neither majesty, grace, favor, nor fairness, yet she did not lack a servant who would have made her fairer than the fair Artesia. He wrote her praises with his helmet in the dust, however, and left her picture as true a witness of his overthrow as his running was of her beauty.

After her was the goodly Artaxia, great queen of Armenia, a lady upon whom nature bestowed (and placed well) her most delightful colors. Nature proportioned her without any fault that could be quickly discovered by the senses, yet altogether seemed not to make up that harmony that Cupid delights in: the reason might seem to be a mannish countenance, which overthrew that lovely sweetness, the noblest power of womankind, far fitter to prevail by parley than by battle.

Of a far contrary consideration was the representation of her that next followed, which was Erona, queen of Lycia. Her hair was so brown that no man should have injured it to call it black. In the mixture of her cheeks the white so much overcame the red (though what was, was very pure) that it came near to paleness. Her face was a thought longer than exact symmetricians perhaps would allow. Yet love played his part so well in every part, that it caught hold of the judgment before it could judge, making it first love and after acknowledge it fair. For there was a certain delicacy, which, in yielding, conquered, and with a pitiful look made one find cause to crave help oneself.

After her came two ladies, of noble, but not of royal, birth. The former was named Baccha, who though very fair and of a fatness rather to allure than to displease, yet she over-familiarly laid open her breasts and made the countenance of her mouth between simpering and smiling. Her head bowed somewhat down and seemed to languish with idleness, and, with her eyes casting an inviting look upward, dissuaded with too much persuading. Her hope seemed to run faster than she inspired desire.

The second, whose name was written Leucippe, was of a fine daintiness of beauty. Her face carried in it a sober simplicity, like one who could do much good and meant no harm. Her eyes had in them such a cheerfulness that nature seemed to smile in them. Although her mouth and cheeks obeyed to that pretty demureness, the more one marked, the more one would judge the poor soul inclined to believe, and therefore the more pity to deceive her.

Next came the queen of Laconia, one that seemed born in the confines of beauty’s kingdom, for her lineaments were neither perfect possessors of it, nor absolute strangers to it, but she was a queen and therefore beautiful.

But she that followed conquered indeed by being conquered, and might well have made all the beholders wait upon her triumph while she herself was led captive. It was the excellently fair Queen Helen, whose hyacinth hair, curled by nature but intercurled by art (like a fine brook through golden sands) had a rope of fair pearls, which, now hiding, now hidden by the hair, did (as it were) play at fast and loose each with other, mutually giving and receiving richness. In her face so much beauty and favor was expressed that if Helen had not been known, some would rather have judged it the painter’s exercise to show what he could do than the counterfeiting of any living pattern. The most fault-finding wit could have found no fault other than that in comparison to the rest of the body, the face was somewhat little, but that little was such a spark of beauty as was able to enflame a world of love. Every part was full of such a choice fineness that if it lacked anything in majesty, it compensated with an increase in pleasure, and if at the first it struck not admiration, it ravished with delight. And no soul was so indifferent that he would not long to have such a playfellow, even if he might resist subjecting himself to her by making her his princess.

As for her attire, it was costly and curious, though her gaze (fixed with more sadness than it seemed nature had bestowed to any that knew her fortune) betrayed that, as she used those ornaments not for herself but to prevail with another, so she feared that all would not serve.

Of a far differing (though esteemed equal) beauty was the fair Parthenia, who next waited on Artesia’s triumph, though far better she might have sat in the throne. For in her, everything was goodly and stately; yet so it might seem that great-mindedness was but the standard-bearer to humbleness. For her great grey eye, which might seem full of her own beauty, and her large and exceedingly fair forehead, with all the rest of her face and body were cast in the mold of nobleness, but so attired as might show the mistress thought she either did not deserve or did not need any exquisite decking, having no adorning but cleanliness—and so far from all art that it was full of carelessness, unless that carelessness itself (in spite of itself) grew from artifice.

Basilius could not abstain from praising Parthenia as the perfect picture of womanly virtue and wifely faithfulness. He told Zelmane how he had understood that her picture (maintained in the court of Laconia by a certain Sicyonian knight) was lost through lack of valor rather than through justice. Her husband, the famous Argalus, would in a chafe have gone and redeemed it with a new trial. But she, more sporting than sorrowing for her underserved champion, told her husband that she desired to be beautiful in nobody’s eye but his, and that she would rather mar her face as badly as ever it had been than allow that it become a cause to make Argalus put on armor.

Then Basilius would have told Zelmane that which he already knew, of the rare trial of their coupled affection: but the next picture made their mouths give place to their eyes.

It was of a young maid who sat pulling a thorn out of a lamb’s foot with a look so attentive upon it, as if that little foot could have been the circle of her thoughts. Her apparel was so poor that it had nothing but the inside to adorn it. A sheep-hook was lying by her with a bottle upon it. But with all that poverty, beauty ruled and commanded as many hearts as the greatest queen there did. Her beauty and her estate made her quickly known as the fair shepherdess Urania, whom a rich knight called Lacemon, far in love with her, had unluckily defended.

The last of all in place, because last in the time of her being captive, was Zelmane, daughter to the King Plexirtus. At the first sight she seemed to resemble Philoclea, but with closer marking (comparing it to the present Philoclea, who indeed had no paragon but her sister) they might see that it was only such a likeness as an imperfect mirror might give, answerable enough in some features and colors, but erring in others.

Zelmane sighed, turning to Basilius, and said, “Alas sir, here are some pictures that might better become the tombs of their mistresses than the triumph of Artesia.”

“It is true, sweetest lady,” said Basilius. “Some of them are dead and some others captive, but that has happened so late as it may be the knights who defended their beauty did not know so much, unless we say (as in some other hearts I know it would fall out) that death itself could not blot out the image which love has engraved in which love has engraved in them. Others besides these has Phalantus won, but he leaves the rest, carrying only such, who either for greatness of estate or of beauty may justly glorify the glory of Artesia’s triumph.”