If cat-eyed, then a Pallas is their love;
If freckled, she’s a party-coloured dove;
If little, then she’s life and soul all o’er;
An Amazon, the large two-handed whore.
She stammers; oh, what grace in lisping lies!
If she says nothing, to be sure she’s wise.
If shrill, and with a voice to drown a quire,
Sharp-witted she must be, and full of fire;
The lean, consumptive wench, with coughs decayed,
Is called a pretty, tight, and slender maid;
The o’ergrown, a goodly Ceres is exprest,
A bed-fellow for Bacchus at the least;
Flat-nose the name of Satyr never misses,
And hanging blobber lips but pout for kisses.
The task were endless all the rest to trace;
Yet grant she were a Venus for her face
And shape, yet others equal beauty share,
And time was you could live without the fair;
She does no more, in that for which you woo,
Than homelier women full as well can do.
De Rerum Natura is a 1st century BC Latin epic by the epicurean poet Lucretius, recently explored by Stephen Greenblatt in The Swerve. He believed that all things are made of atoms, that the gods have no involvement in human life, and that happiness is found in the moderate satisfaction of bodily appetites. Dryden translated five sections of the poem. These lines, on the delusions of lovers, come from a section on the insanities of sexual passion.
Like Lucretius, Dryden contrasts the polite hyperboles of love with the physical needs that prompt them. He updates the language to 17th century England, mixing snatches of conversation overheard in the salon (‘oh, what grace in lisping lies!’) with earthier judgements: the so-called Amazon is actually a ‘large two-handed whore’. This is meant to be shocking and rude. The contrast points to the (perhaps unconscious) hypocrisy of lovers who spout pretty inanities but whose obsessions are driven by sexual desire.
The unflattering descriptions of women as ‘cat-eyed’, ‘flat-nosed’, and ‘shrill, and with a voice to drown a quire’ also create a sense of the character who speaks them. It’s easy to imagine him as a cynical onlooker standing in the corner, watching these women and their lovers pass by, as he whispers his snide comments in our ear. This is flattering and entertaining. This worldly-wise man, who sees beyond the delusions of other people, has chosen us to confide in and illuminate. It’s also wildly entertaining. Who couldn’t be delighted at his description of ‘hanging blobber lips’? His words are carefully chosen. ‘Blobber’ (meaning thick and swollen) makes you stick out your lips to say it, just like the woman he mimics and ridicules. It is not a dignified word, and its crudity is a pinprick to deflate the pomposity of lovers who cast their mistresses as goddesses (Pallas, Ceres) and themselves as gods (Bachus).
Dryden respects Lucretius’ desire to undercut this kind of rhetoric. We are animals really, Lucretius says, and happiest when we recognise that. We have physical needs, so meet them. But remember that ‘homelier women full as well can do’ what you want your beauty to do.
Lucretius and Dryden are neither the first nor the last people to reduce sexuality to a matter of health and hygiene (physical and psychic). Dryden, in this passage, certainly makes it seem a little ridiculous to talk about it in any other way. Perhaps, however, we don’t always want to be in the corner with the cynic, however fun that might be at times. Would you like to always see everyone as ‘cat-eyed…shrill…o’ergrown’ with a ‘flat nose’ and ‘blobber lips?’ If you do, perhaps you don’t mind settling for the ‘homelier’ sort, rather than the person you actually want. But wouldn’t you sometimes like to be able to recognise your lovers as gods and goddesses, to delight in the grace, wisdom and beauty that you can see, even if no-one else can?
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