the bosom, and the hips; four fine—­the eyebrows, the nose, the lips, and the fingers; four thick—­the lower part of the back, the thighs, the calves of the legs, and the knees; four small—­the ears, the breasts, the hands, and the feet.” (E.W.  Lane, Arabian Society in the Middle Ages, 1883, pp. 214-216.)

A Persian treatise on the figurative terms relating to beauty shows that the hair should be black, abundant, and wavy, the eyebrows dark and arched.  The eyelashes also must be dark, and like arrows from the bow of the eyebrows.  There is, however, no insistence on the blackness of the eyes.  We hear of four varieties of eye:  the dark-gray eye (or narcissus eye); the narrow, elongated eye of Turkish beauties; the languishing, or love-intoxicated, eye; and the wine-colored eye.  Much stress is laid on the quality of brilliancy.  The face is sometimes described as brown, but more especially as white and rosy.  There are many references to the down on the lips, which is described as greenish (sometimes bluish) and compared to herbage.  This down and that on the cheeks and the stray hairs near the ears were regarded as very great beauties.  A beauty spot on the chin, cheek, or elsewhere was also greatly admired, and evoked many poetic comparisons.  The mouth must be very small.  In stature a beautiful woman must be tall and erect, like the cypress or the maritime pine.  While the Arabs admired the rosiness of the legs and thighs, the Persians insisted on white legs and compared them to silver and crystal. (Anis El-Ochchaq, by Shereef-Eddin Romi, translated by Huart, Bibliotheque de l’Ecole des Hautes Etudes, Paris, fasc. 25, 1875.)

In the story of Kamaralzaman in the Arabian Nights El-Sett Budur is thus described:  “Her hair is so brown that it is blacker than the separation of friends.  And when it is arrayed in three tresses that reach to her feet I seem to see three nights at once.

    “Her face is as white as the day on which friends meet again.  If
    I look on it at the time of the full moon I see two moons at
    once.

    “Her cheeks are formed of an anemone divided into two corollas;
    they have the purple tinge of wine, and her nose is straighter
    and more delicate than the finest sword-blade.

    “Her lips are colored agate and coral; her tongue secretes
    eloquence; her saliva is more desirable than the juice of
    grapes.

    “But her bosom, blessed be the Creator, is a living seduction.  It
    bears twin breasts of the purest ivory, rounded, and that may be
    held within the five fingers of one hand.

“Her belly has dimples full of shade and arranged with the harmony of the Arabic characters on the seal of a Coptic scribe in Egypt.  And the belly gives origin to her finely modeled and elastic waist.

    “At the thought of her flanks I shudder, for thence depends a
    mass so weighty that it obliges its owner to sit down when she
    has risen and to rise when she lies.