Oh, boy, as maiden fair, I fix my heart on you; But you despise my prayer, And little care that you do hold the reins Which my soul's course incessantly do guide.[21] And the magnificent Pindar says— The man who gazes on the brilliant rays Which shoot from th' eyes Of beautiful Theoxenus, and yet can feel his heart Unmoved within his breast, nor yields to love, Must have a heart Black, and composed of adamant or iron.[22] But the Cyclops of Philoxenus of Cythera, in love with Galatea, and praising her beauty, and prophesying, as it were, his own blindness, praises every part of her rather than mention her eyes, which he does not; speaking thus:— O Galatea, Nymph with the beauteous face and golden hair, Whose voice the Graces tune, True flower of love, my beauteous Galatea. But this is but a blind panegyric, and not at all to be compared with the encomium of Ibycus:— Beauteous Euryalus, of all the Graces The choicest branch,—object of love to all The fair-hair'd maidens,—sure the soft-eyed goddess, The Cyprian queen, and soft Persuasion Combin'd to nourish you on beds of roses. And Phrynichus said of Troilus— The light of love shines in his purple cheeks. 18. But you prefer having all the objects of your love shaved and hairless. And this custom of shaving the beard originated in the age of Alexander, as Chrysippus tells us in the fourth book of his treatise on The Beautiful and on Pleasure. And I think it will not be unseasonable if I quote what he says; for he is an author of whom I am very fond, on account of his great learning and his gentle good-humoured disposition. And this is the language of the philosopher:—"The custom of shaving the beard was introduced in the time of Alexander, for the people in earlier times did not practise it; and Timotheus the flute-player used to play on the flute having a very long beard. And at Athens they even now remember that the man who first shaved his chin, (and he is not a very ancient man indeed,) was given the surname of Κόρσης;[23] on which account Alexis says— Do you see any man whose beard has been Removed by sharp pitch-plasters or by razors? In one of these two ways he may be spoken of: Either he seems to me to think of war, And so to be rehearsing acts of fierce Hostility against his beard and chin; Or else he's some complaint of wealthy men. For how, I pray you, do your beards annoy you?— Beards by which best you may be known as men? Unless, indeed, you're planning now some deed Unworthy of the character of men.