# Lives of Fair and Gallant Ladies/Volume I/Third Discourse (1.)

THIRD DISCOURSE
Concerning the beauty of a fine leg, and the virtue
the same doth possess.
1.
MONG many and sundry beauties the which I have at divers times known us courtiers to praise, and which are right well adapted to attract love, one of the highest esteemed is a fine leg on a fine woman. Many fair ladies have I known take great pride therein, and use great pains to have and to keep the same beautiful. Amongst others I have heard tell of a noble Princess of the great world, and one that I did myself know, which did cherish one of her ladies above all the rest, and did favour her beyond all, for this only because she could draw on her mistress' hose so close and tight, and arrange them so cleverly to fit the leg, and fasten the garter so prettily, better than any other. For this only reason she gat great preferment at her hands, and even did win considerable wealth. Now in view of all this care she took to keep her leg in such good trim, we may be very sure 'twas not to hide the same under her petticoats or under skirts or frock, but to make display thereof at whiles with fine drawers of cloth of gold and silver, or other the like rich ​stuff, very prettily and daintily made, which she did commonly wear. For verily a woman taketh not such pleasure in her body without being fain to give others a share also in the sight, yea! and the enjoyment thereof.
Moreover this lady could not make excuse, saying 'twas all done to pleasure her husband, as the most part of women, and even of old women, will ever declare, whenas they do make themselves so seductive and gay, though they be quite elderly; for she was a widow. True it is in her husband's lifetime she had done the same, and would not leave off the habit afterward, merely because she had lost him.
I have known many fair and honourable ladies, both wives and maids, which are no less painstaking thus to keep their fine legs in well cared for, seemly and attractive guise. And very right they be so to do; for truly there is more wanton seduction doth lie therein than you would readily suppose.
I have heard speak of a very great lady, of the days of King Francis, and a right fair dame, who having broken a leg and had the same set, did after find 'twas ill done, and the limb was left all twisted. So stout of heart was she, that she did make the bone-setter break it afresh, for to restore it to its right shape as before, and make it as fine and straight as ever. Hereat a certain lady did express no little surprise; but another fair lady, and a well experienced one, did answer thus and said, "Ah! I see plainly you know not what amorous virtue a fine leg hath in it."
I knew in former days a very fair and honourable damsel of the great world, who being much in love with a great Lord, for to attract him to her and by way of ​trying some good device to win him to her,—a design wherein she could never succeed, one day being in a wooded avenue and seeing him approach, did make a pretense as though her garter were coming down. So withdrawing a little on one side, she did lift up her leg, and began to pull up her stocking and re-adjust her garter. The great lord did note it all well, and found her leg an exceeding fine one. Indeed he did lose his head so completely that this sight of her did work more effect on him than ever her face had done, for he did think to himself how that two such fine columns must needs support a very fine building. And later he did admit as much to his mistress, who afterward did with him as she would. A noteworthy device truly, and a pretty bit of love practice!
I have heard speak likewise of a fair and honourable lady, and one especially witty and of a gay good humour, who one day, when her chamber valet was a-drawing on of her hose, did ask him if this did not put him in heat, temptation and concupiscence; nay! she put it yet more plainly, and said the plain word right out. The valet, thinking to please and for the respect he bare his mistress, did answer her, No!—At this she did of a sudden lift her hand and gave him a sound cuff on the head, crying out, "Begone with you! you shall never serve me more. You are a simpleton, and I do give you notice from this day."
There be many young ladies' valets nowadays which be not so self-restrained at the rising of their mistresses from bed and in the dressing of them and putting on of their footgear. Moreover many a gentleman would have found it hard to act thus, seeing so fair a treat spread out before his eyes.
​'Tis not only in our own day men have esteemed the beauty of fine legs and pretty feet (for 'tis one and the same thing; but in the time of the old Romans likewise we do read how Lucius Vitellius, father of the Emperor Vitellius, being very sore smit with love for Messalina and desiring to be in favour with her husband by her means, did one day beseech her to do him the honour of granting him a boon. The Empress asked him, "What boon?"—"'Tis this, Madam," he replied, "that you be pleased one day to suffer me to take off your shoes." Messalina, who was ever full of courtesy for her subjects, could not refuse him this favour. Then he, after removing her shoes, did keep one of them, and bore the same always about with him betwixt his shirt and his skin, kissing it as oft as ever he had opportunity, in this wise worshipping his lady's pretty feet in the guise of her slippers, forasmuch as he could not have at his disposal the foot itself nor the fine leg appertaining thereto.
Then you have that English Lord in the Cent Nouvelles of the Queen of Navarre, which did in like wise wear his mistress' glove by his side, and that so richly adorned. Again I have known many gentlemen which, before donning of their silk stockings, would beg their fair ladies and mistresses to try on the same and wear them the first a week or ten days, more or less; after which themselves would wear them in great respect and high content of mind and body.
I knew once a Lord of the great world, who being at sea with a very great lady and one of the fairest of womankind, had the happiness, seeing he was travelling with her through his country and as her women were all ill of seasickness and so in very ill case to serve her, ​to be obliged to put her to bed with his own hands every night and get her up in the morning. But in so doing and in putting on of her footgear and taking off the same, he did grow so much enamoured as to be well nigh desperate, albeit she was his near kinswoman. For verily the temptation herein was too exceeding great, and there doth not exist the man so mortified in spirit but he is something moved by the same.
We do read of the wife of Nero, Poppæa Sabina, which was the favourite of all his wives and mistresses, how that, beside being the most lavish of women in all sorts of superfluities, ornaments, embellishments, gawds and costly weeds, she did wear shoes and slippers all of pure gold. This luxury was not like to make her hide her foot and leg from Nero, her cuckold mate; nor yet did he enjoy the sole delight and pleasure of the sight, for there was many another lover had the same privilege. Well might she display this extravagance for herself, seeing she was used to have her horses' hoofs, which did draw her chariot, shod with shoes of silver.
Saint Jerome doth reprove in very severe terms a lady of his time which was over careful of the beauty of her leg, using these exact words: "With her little brown boot, well fitting and well polished, she doth decoy young men, and the tinkle of her shoe-buckles is a snare unto them." No doubt this was some dainty fashion of footgear in vogue in those days, that was over luxurious and ill becoming to modest women. The wearing of foot-gear of the sort is to this present day in use among Turkish ladies, and those the best-born and most virtuous.
I have seen the question raised and discussed which is the more seductive and alluring, the naked leg, or the leg ​covered and stockinged? Many hold there is naught like the natural article, when 'tis well made and perfectly turned, according to the points of beauty enumerated by the Spaniard I did quote from a little above, and is white, fair and smooth, and appropriately displayed in a fine bed. For if it be otherwise and a lady were fain to show her leg all bare in walking and so on, and with shoes on her feet, albeit she should be the most magnificently dressed out possible, yet would she never be deemed becomingly apparelled. Nor would she really and truly look so fair as one that should be properly equipped with pretty hose of coloured silk or else of white thread, such as be made at Florence for summer wear, and which I have often seen our ladies wearing in former times, before the great vogue we do now see of silk stockings. But the hose must ever be drawn close and stretched as tight as a drum and so fastened with clasps or otherwise, according to the preference and good pleasure of the wearer. Further must the foot be fitted with a pretty white shoe, or a slipper of black velvet or velvet of some other colour, or else a neat little high-heeled shoe, cut to perfection, such as I have seen a certain very noble lady of the great world wear, of such sort that naught could well be better or more dainty.
Wherein again the beauty of the foot must be considered. If this be too large, 'tis not pretty; but an if it be too tiny, it doth give a naughty hint and ill notion of its wearer. Rather it should be of a middling size, as I have seen sundry which have been exceeding appetizing, above all when their owners did thrust the same half in, half out, and just show them beneath their petticoat, and make them shift and quiver in little tricksome, wanton ​movements, being shod with a pretty little high-heeled shoe, thinly soled, or else a white slipper, pointed, not square-toed in front; but the white is the most daintiest. But these little high-heeled shoes and pumps be for big, tall women, not for the short and dwarfish ones, which do have their great horse-shoes with soles two feet thick. One had as lief as these see a giant's club on the swing, or a fool's bawble.
Another thing a woman should beware of is the disguising her sex and dressing herself as a boy, whether for a masquerade or for any other occasion. For so attired, though she have the finest leg in the world, yet doth she look ill-shapen in that part, seeing all things have their proper setting and suitable array. Thus in falsifying of their sex, they do altogether disfigure their beauty and natural grace.
This is why 'tis not becoming for a woman to dress as a boy for to display her charms to the more advantage,—unless indeed it be merely to don a dainty, gallant cap with the Guelf or Ghibelline feather stuck therein, or perched above the brow, in such wise to be distinctively neither male nor female, after the fashion our ladies have of late adopted. Yet even this doth not suit all women equally well; the face must be saucy and of just the right expression to carry it off, as we have seen in the case of our Queen Marguerite of Navarre. Her it did suit so well that, seeing her face only when she was so bedecked, no man could tell which sex she came the nearer to, whether she more looked the handsome boy or the beautiful woman she really was.
This doth remind me of another lady of the great world, and one I knew, which wishing to imitate the same ​mode when about twenty-five years of age, and altogether over tall and big statured, a great masculine looking woman and but lately come to Court, and thinking to play the gallant dame, did one day appear so attired in the ball-room. Nor did she fail to be much stared at and rallied not a little on her costume. Even the King himself did pronounce his judgement thereon, for indeed he was one of the wittiest men in his realm, and declared she did resemble a mountebank's wench, or still better one of those painted figures of women that are imported from Flanders and set up in front of the chimney-pieces in inns and taverns with German flutes at their lips. In fact he went so far as to have her told that if she did appear any more in that dress and get-up, he would order her to bring her flute with her for to play a merry greeting to the noble company withal and divert them with her music. Such cruel sport did he make of her, as well because the said head-gear did so ill suit her as for a grudge he had against her husband.
So we see such masquerading doth not suit all ladies alike. For when this same Queen of Navarre, the fairest woman in all the world, was pleased to adopt a further disguise beyond the cap, she did never appear so fair as she really was, nor ever would have. And indeed what shape could she have taken more beauteous than her own, seeing there is none better she could have borrowed from any in all the world? And if she had chose to show her leg, the which I have heard sundry of her women describe as the finest and best ever known, otherwise than in its proper form, and appearing well and fitly stockinged and shod below her fine clothes, never would it have been deemed so handsome as it was. Thus with a due regard ​to surroundings doth it behove fair ladies to show and make display of their beauties.