"A peculiar anthologic maze, an amusing literary chaos, a farrago of quotations, a mere olla podrida of quaintness, a pot pourri of pleasant delites, a florilegium of elegant extracts, a tangled fardel of old-world flowers of thought, a faggot of odd fancies, quips, facetiae, loosely tied" (Holbrook Jackson, Anatomy of Bibliomania) by a "laudator temporis acti," a "praiser of time past" (Horace, Ars Poetica 173).
Pages
▼
Monday, November 04, 2024
Clothing, or Its Absence
Plautus, Mostellaria 169 (tr. Wolfgang de Melo):
Lovers don't love a woman's dress, but its stuffing.
non vestem amatores amant mulieris, sed vestis fartim.
Id. 289:
A beautiful woman will be more beautiful naked than dressed in purple.
pulchra mulier nuda erit quam purpurata pulchrior.