Be this as it may, the Spaniard saith that to make a woman all perfect, complete and absolute in loveliness, she must needs have thirty several beauties,[123] the which a Spanish lady did once enumerate to me at Toledo, a city where be very fair and charming women, and well instructed to boot. The thirty then are as followeth: (Translated, for the reader’s better comprehension:) Three things white: skin, teeth and hands. Three black: eyes, brows and lids. Three red: lips, cheeks and nails. Three long: body, hair and hands. Three short: teeth, ears and feet. Three wide: chest or bosom, forehead and space betwixt the eyes. Three narrow: mouth (upper and lower), girth or waist, and ankle. Three big and thick: arm, thigh and calf. Three long and fine: fingers, hair and lips. Three small and delicate: breasts, nose and head. Making thirty in all. ’Tis not inconceivable nor impossible but that all these beauties should be united all together in one and the same fair lady; but in that case she must needs be framed in the mould of absolute perfection. For indeed to see them all so combined, without there being a single one to carp at and find at fault is scarce possible. I do refer me to such as have seen beautiful women, or will see such anon, and who would fain be heedful in noting the same and appraising them, what they shall say of them. But though they be not complete and perfectly beautiful in all these points, yet will a beautiful woman alway be beautiful, and if she have but the half, and those the chief ones, of the parts and features I have named. For truly I have seen many which had more than the half, and were exceeding fair and very lovable. Just as a wood seemeth ever beautiful in Spring-tide, even though it be not filled with all the little pretty shrubs one might wish for. Yet are there plenty of fine, tall, spreading trees, which by their abundance may very well hide the lack of other smaller vegetation. M. de Ronsard[124*] must pardon me, if he will. Never did his mistress, whom he hath represented as so very beautiful, really attain such perfection, nor any other lady he ever saw in his day or did describe. He calleth her his fair Cassandra, and sure I am she _was_ fair, but he hath disguised her under a fictitious name. And the same is equally true of his Marie, who never bore other name but that, as it is of the first mentioned. Still it is allowed to poets and painters to say and do what pleaseth them,—for instance you will find in the _Orlando Furioso_ wondrous fair beauties portrayed by Ariosto, those of Alcina and of many another fair one.