Page:Gesta Romanorum - Swan - Wright - 2.djvu/488

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476
NOTES.

frenati, stabilis animi constantiam promittentes. Palpebrarum etiam pili non inhonestè natura in ea collocaverat. Nasus etiam ejus rectitudinis suæ lineam plenitudinis etiam decore possidebat in geminas dividens maxillarum partes. Nec vergebat in supremum nimiâ longitudine nec nimiâ brevitate correpta, sed decenti honestatis quantitate incedebat. Cujus collum radiis solaribus candidius, speciosis ornatum clinodiis, hominum aspectibus mirabilem intulerat animi jocunditatem. Corpus etiam non diminutum vel quantitatis mole superabundans nequaquam quibus in ea censere proposuit. Ex cujus pectore brachia pulchritudinis tanquam ex arboris trunco rami procedebant. Quorum digiti quantitatis debitam sibi assumpserant mensuram unguium fulgore non pretermisso[1]; cujus summaria speciositas nihil deformitatis sibi admisceri compatiebatur. In quâ potest notari etiam singularis animæ suæ perfectio per potentiam divinam creando sibi infusæ." Fol. lxiv. Ed. 1508.

The reader, I think, will agree with me that this is altogether a brilliant description of female beauty; and, for the most part, as yet unhacknied.


  1. "The shining of the nails not being forgotten." This has been rendered somewhat paraphrastically in the text. The nails, it should be remembered, are coloured in the East.