Page:The Deipnosophists (Volume 3).djvu/387

 Exalts the pigmy to a proper size. Is she too tall of stature? a low chair Softens the fault, and a fine easy stoop Lowers her to standard-pitch.—If narrow-hipt, A handsome wadding readily supplies What nature stints, and all beholders cry, See what plump haunches!—Hath the nymph perchance A high round paunch, stuft like our comic drolls, And strutting out foreright? a good stout busk Pushing athwart shall force the intruder back. Hath she red brows? a little soot will cure 'em. Is she too black? the ceruse makes her fair: Too pale of hue? the opal comes in aid. Hath she a beauty out of sight? disclose it! Strip nature bare without a blush.—Fine teeth? Let her affect one everlasting grin, Laugh without stint—but ah! if laugh she cannot, And her lips won't obey, take a fine twig Of myrtle, shape it like a butcher's skewer, And prop them open, set her on the bit Day after day, when out of sight, till use Grows second nature, and the pearly row, Will she or will she not, perforce appears.

(Book xiii. § 26, p. 911.)

Alas for Laïs! A slut, a wine-bibber—her only care Is to supply the cravings of the day, To eat and drink—to masticate and tipple. The eagle and herself are fittest parallels. In the first prime and lustlihood of youth, The mountain king ne'er quits his royal eyrie, But lamb, or straggling sheep, or earth-couch'd hare, Caught in his grip, repays the fierce descent: But when old age hath sapp'd his mettle's vigour, He sits upon the temple tops, forlorn, In all the squalid wretchedness of famine, And merely serves to point an augurs tale. Just such another prodigy is Lais!