noticed she was much enamelled with white lead, [2]
no doubt to enhance the natural whiteness of her skin; she had rouged
herself with alkanet [3] profusely, doubtless to give more colour to her
cheeks than truth would warrant; she was wearing high-heeled shoes, in
order to seem taller than she was by nature. [4]

[2] Cf. Aristoph. "Eccl." 878; ib. 929, {egkhousa mallon kai to son
psimuthion}: ib. 1072; "Plut." 1064.

[3] Lit. "enamelled or painted with anchusa or alkanet," a plant, the
wild bugloss, whose root yields a red dye. Cf. Aristoph. "Lys."
48; Theophr. "H. Pl." vii. 8. 3.

[4] See Becker, op. cit. p. 452; Breit. cf. "Anab." III. ii. 25;
"Mem." II. i. 22; Aristot. "Eth. Nic." iv. 3, 5, "True beauty
requires a great body."

Accordingly I put to her this question: [5] "Tell me, my wife, would you
esteem me a less lovable co-partner in our wealth, were I to show you
how our fortune stands exactly, without boasting of unreal possessions
or concealing what we really have? Or would you prefer that I should try
to cheat you with exaggeration, exhibiting false money to you, or sham
[6] necklaces, or flaunting purples [7] which will lose their colour,
stating they are genuine the while?"

[5] Lit. "So I said to her, 'Tell me, my wife, after which fashion
would you find me the more delectable partner in our joint estate
--were I to...? or were I to...?'"

[6] Lit. "only wood coated with gold."

[7] See Becker, op. cit. p. 434 f; Holden cf. Athen. ix. 374, xii.
525; Ael. "V. H." xii. 32; Aristoph. "Plut." 533.

She caught me up at once: "Hush, hush!" she said, "talk not such talk.
May heaven forfend that you should ever be like that. I could not love
you with my whole heart were you really of that sort."

"And are we two not come together," I continued, "for a closer
partnership, being each a sharer in the other's body?"

"That, at any rate, is what folk say," she answered.

"Then as regards this bodily relation," I proceeded, "should you regard
me as more lovable or less did I present myself, my one endeavour and my
sole care being that my body should be hale and strong and thereby well
complexioned, or would you have me first anoint myself with pigments,
[8] smear my eyes with patches [9] of 'true flesh colour,' [10] and so
seek your embrace, like a cheating consort presenting to his mistress's
sight and touch vermillion paste instead of his own flesh?"

[8] "Red lead