“She comes, She goes back, she approaches, she goes back. She has come, she is here, she washes herself, she advances, She is soaped, she is combed, she goes out, is rubbed, She washes herself, looks in the glass, robes herself, Anoints herself, decks herself, besmears herself; And if aught is wrong, chokes [with vexation].” Thrice, I say, not once, do they deserve to perish, who use crocodiles’ excrement, and anoint themselves with the froth of putrid humours, and stain their eyebrows with soot, and rub their cheeks with white lead. These, then, who are disgusting even to the heathen poets for their fashions, how shall they not be rejected by the truth? Accordingly another comic poet, Alexis, reproves them. For I shall adduce his words, which with extravagance of statement shame the obstinacy of their impudence. For he was not very far beyond the mark. And I cannot for shame come to the assistance of women held up to such ridicule in comedy. Then she ruins her husband. “For first, in comparison with gain and the spoiling of neighbours, All else is in their eyes superfluous.” “Is one of them little? She stitches cork into her shoe-sole. Is one tall? She wears a thin sole, And goes out keeping her head down on her shoulder: This takes away from her height. Has one no flanks? She has something sewed on to her, so that the spectators May exclaim on her fine shape behind. Has she a prominent stomach? By making additions, to render it straight, such as the nurses we see in the comic poets, She draws back, as it were, by these poles, the protuberance of the stomach in front. Has one yellow eyebrows? She stains them with soot. Do they happen to be black? She smears them with ceruse. Is one very white-skinned? She rouges. Has one any part of the body beautiful? She shows it bare. Has she beautiful teeth? She must needs laugh, That those present may see what a pretty mouth she has; But if not in the humour for laughing, she passes the day within, With a slender sprig of myrtle between her lips, Like what cooks have always at hand when they have goats’ heads to sell, So that she must keep them apart the whilst, whether she will or not.” I set these quotations from the comic poets before you, since the Word most strenuously wishes to save us. And by and by I will fortify them with the divine Scriptures. For he who does not escape notice is wont to abstain from sins, on account of the shame of reproof. Just as the plastered hand and the anointed eye exhibit from their very look the suspicion of a person in illness, so also cosmetics and dyes indicate that the soul is deeply diseased.