Physical beauty results from the harmonious action of various parts which can be taken in at a glance. It therefore requires that these parts should lie near together; and, since things whose parts lie near together are the proper subjects of painting, this art and this alone can imitate physical beauty. The poet, who must necessarily detail in succession the elements of beauty, should therefore desist entirely from the description of physical beauty as such. He must feel that these elements arranged in a series cannot possibly produce the same effect as in juxtaposition; that the concentrating glance which we try to cast back over them immediately after their enumeration, gives us no harmonious picture; and that to conceive the effect of certain eyes, a certain mouth and nose taken together, unless we can recall a similar combination of such parts in nature or art, surpasses the power of human imagination. Here again Homer is the model of all models. He says, Nireus was fair; Achilles was fairer; Helen was of godlike beauty. But he is nowhere betrayed into a more detailed description of these beauties. Yet the whole poem is based upon the loveliness of Helen. How a modern poet would have revelled in descriptions of it! Even Constantinus Manasses sought to adorn his bald chronicle with a picture of Helen. I must thank him for the attempt, for I really should not know where else to turn for so striking an example of the folly of venturing on what Homer’s wisdom forbore to undertake. When I read in him:[127] ἦν ἡ γυνὴ περικαλλὴς, εὔοφρυς, εὐχρουστάτη, εὐπάρειος, εὐπρόσωπος, βοῶπις, χιονόχρους, ἑλικοβλέφαρος, ἁβρὰ, χαρίτων γέμον ἄλσος, λευκοβραχίων, τρυφερὰ, κάλλος ἄντικρυς ἔμπνουν, τὸ πρόσωπον κατάλευκον, ἡ παρειὰ ῥοδόχρους, τὸ πρόσωπον ἐπίχαρι, τὸ βλέφαρον ὡραῖον, κάλλος ἀνεπιτήδευτον, ἀβάπτιστον, αὐτόχρουν, ἔβαπτε τὴν λευκότητα ῥοδόχροια πυρσίνη, ὡς εἴ τις τὸν ἐλέφαντα βάψει λαμπρᾷ πορφύρᾳ. δειρὴ μακρά, κατάλευκος, ὅθεν ἐμυθουργήθη κυκνογενῆ τὴν εὔοπτον Ἑλένην χρηματίζειν, it is like seeing stones rolled up a mountain,[128] on whose summit they are to be built into a gorgeous edifice; but which all roll down of themselves on the other side. What picture does this crowd of words leave behind? How did Helen look? No two readers out of a thousand would receive the same impression of her. But political verses by a monk are, it is true, no poetry. Let us hear Ariosto describe his enchantress Alcina:[129]— Di persona era tanto ben formata, Quanto mai finger san pittori industri. Con bionda chioma, lunga e annodata, Oro non è, che piu risplenda e lustri. Spargeasi per la guancia delicata Misto color di rose e di ligustri. Di terso avorio era la fronte lieta, Che lo spazio finia con giusta meta.