Yea, but you will infer, your mistress is complete, of a most absolute form in all men’s opinions, no exceptions can be taken at her, nothing may be added to her person, nothing detracted, she is the mirror of women for her beauty, comeliness and pleasant grace, inimitable, merae deliciae, meri lepores, she is Myrothetium Veneris, Gratiarum pixis, a mere magazine of natural perfections, she hath all the Veneres and Graces,—­mille faces et mille figuras, in each part absolute and complete, [5726]_Laeta genas laeta os roseum, vaga lumina laeta_:  to be admired for her person, a most incomparable, unmatchable piece, aurea proles, ad simulachrum alicujus numinis composita, a Phoenix, vernantis aetatulae Venerilla, a nymph, a fairy, [5727]like Venus herself when she was a maid, nulli secunda, a mere quintessence, flores spirans et amaracum, foeminae prodigium:  put case she be, how long will she continue? [5728]_Florem decoris singuli carpunt dies_:  “Every day detracts from her person,” and this beauty is bonum fragile, a mere flash, a Venice glass, quickly broken,

[5729] “Anceps 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,