Pro imaginibus

That, however, is not the case. Praise would be highly valuable if it were possible to derive any actual profit from it through such extravagant employment. But as it is, those people in my opinion are in the same case that an ugly man would be in if someone should officiously put a handsome mask upon him and he were to pride himself greatly upon his beauty, regardless of the fact that it was detachable and could be destroyed by the first comer, in which event he would look still more ridiculous when he stood revealed in his own proper features and showed what ugliness had been hidden behind that lovely mask. Or it would be as if someone who was small should put on the buskins of an actor and try to compete in height with those who, on an even footing, overtop him by a full cubit.”

She mentioned an instance in point. She said that a woman of conspicuous position, who was pretty and attractive in every other way, but small, and far beneath the well-proportioned height, was being lauded in song by a certain poet, not only on all other grounds, but because she was fair and tall; he likened her to a black poplar for goodly stature and straightness! Well, she was delighted with the compliment, just as if she were going to grow to match the song, and lifted her hand in approval. So the poet gave many encores, seeing that she liked to be praised, until at last one of the company leaned over to his ear and said: “Have done with it, man—you might make her stand up!”

Something similar and much more comical was

She made fun of all such people as these, who surrender themselves to flatterers, and she added, too, that many wish to be similarly flattered and cozened in portraits as well as in complimentary speeches. “In fact,” said she, “they delight most of all in those painters who make the prettiest pictures of them. And there are some who even direct the artists to take away a little of the nose, or paint the eyes blacker, or give them any other characteristic that they covet; and then, in their blissful ignorance, they hang wreaths of flowers upon portraits of other people, not in the least like themselves!”

That is about what she had to say; she commended most of the piece, but could not put up with one feature of it, that you compared her to goddesses, to Hera and Aphrodite. ‘Such praise,” she said, “is too high for me; indeed, too high for human kind. For my part I did not want you to compare me even to those great ladies, Penelope and Arete and Theano, let alone the noblest of the goddesses. Besides, I am very superstitious and

In view of this, Lycinus, she said that you must rewrite everything of that sort, or else for her part she calls the goddesses to witness that you wrote it without her consent, and says you know that the book will annoy her if it circulates in the form in which you have now couched it, which is not at all reverential or pious in its allusions to the gods. She thought, too, that it would be considered a sacrilege and a sin on her own part if she should allow herself to be said to resemble Cnidian Aphrodite, and Our Lady in the Gardens. Moreover, she wanted to remind you of the remark that you made about her at the end of the book. You said that she was modest and free from vanity ; and that she did not try to soar higher than a human being should, but made her flight close to the earth. Yet the man who said that sets the woman above the very stars, even to the point of likening her to goddesses!

She did not want you to think her less intelligent than Alexander. In his case, when the masterbuilder undertook to remodel the whole of Athos and shape it into his likeness, so that the entire mountain would become the image of the king, holding a city in either hand, Alexander would not agree to the monstrous proposal. Thinking the project over-bold for him, he stopped the man from modelling colossi on a scale that transcended convincingness, bidding him to let Athos alone and not

So it was with her, said she; while she commended your skill in modelling and the idea of the portraits, she did not recognize the likeness. She was not worthy of such compliments, not by a great deal, nor was any other mere woman. Therefore she absolves you from honouring her thus, and pays her homage to your patterns and models. You may praise her in the ordinary, human way, but do not let the sandal be too large for her foot; “it might hamper me,” she said, “when I walk about in it.”

Furthermore, she enjoined it upon me to tell you this. “I hear many say (whether it is true or not, you men know[*](Women did not attend the Olympic games. )) that even at the Olympic games the victors are not allowed to set up statues greater than life-size, but the Hellanodicae take care that not one of them shall exceed the truth, and the scrutiny of the statues is more strict than the examination of the athletes. So be on your guard for fear we incur the imputation of falsifying in the matter of height, and then the Hellanodicae overturn our statue.”