Page:The Book of the Courtier.djvu/472

THE FOURTH BOOK OF THE COURTIER wherein it dwells is not of such base material that it cannot im- press thereon its quality. Therefore beauty is the true trophy of the soul's victory, when with power divine she holds sway over material nature, and by her light 9vercomes the darkness of ^e body. ,iX>^^^jd ,s^^l!r-x;- ,„2..^-^v U^^>-^- ■ " Hence we must not say that beauty makes women proud or cruel, although it may seem so to my lord Morello; nor yet ought we to ascribe to beautiful women those enmities, deaths and destructions of which the immoderate appetites of men are the cause. I do not by any means deny that it is pos- sible to find beautiful women in the world who are also im- modest, but it is not at all because their beauty inclines them to immodesty; nay, it turns them therefrom and leads them to the path of virtuous behaviour, by the connection that beauty has with goodness. But sometimes evil training, the continual urgence of their lovers, gifts, poverty, hope, deceits, fear and a thousand other causes, overcome the steadfastness even of beautiful and good women; and through these or similar causes beautiful men also may become wicked." 60.— Then messer Cesare said: " If that is true which my lord Gaspar alleged yesterday, there is no doubt that beautiful women are more chaste than ugly women." " And what did I allege? " said my lord Gaspar. Messer Cesare replied: " If I remember rightly, you said that women who are wooed always refuse to satisfy him who wooes them, and that those who are not wooed woo others. Certain it is that the beautiful are always more wooed and besought in love than are the ugly; therefore the beautiful always refuse, and hence are more chaste than the ugly, who, not being wooed, woo others." Bembo laughed, and said: " To this argument no answer can be made." Then he added: '• It often happens also that our sight deceives us like our other senses, and accounts a face beautiful which in truth is not beautiful; and since in some women's eyes and whole aspect a certain wantonness is seen depicted, together with unseemly blandishments, — many (who like such manner because it prom- 296