Men Not Excluded from These Remarks on Personal Adornment.

Chapter VIII.—Men Not Excluded from These Remarks on Personal Adornment.

Of course, now, I, a man, as being envious²⁰⁵ of women, am banishing them quite from their own (domains).  Are there, in our case too, some things which, in respect of the sobriety²⁰⁶ we are to maintain on account of the fear²⁰⁷ due to God, are disallowed?²⁰⁸  If it is true, (as it is,) that in men, for the sake of women (just as in women for the sake of men), there is implanted, by a defect of nature, the will to please; and if this sex of ours acknowledges to itself deceptive trickeries of form peculiarly its own,—(such as) to cut the beard too sharply; to pluck it out here and there; to shave round about (the mouth); to arrange the hair, and disguise its hoariness by dyes; to remove all the incipient down all over the body; to fix (each particular hair) in its place with (some) womanly pigment; to smooth all the rest of the body by the aid of some rough powder or other:  then, further, to take every opportunity for consulting the mirror; to gaze anxiously into it:—while yet, when (once) the knowledge of God has put an end to all wish to please by means of voluptuous attraction, all these things are rejected as frivolous, as hostile to modesty.  For where God is, there modesty is; there is sobriety²⁰⁹ her assistant and ally.  How, then, shall we practise modesty without her instrumental mean,²¹⁰ that is, without sobriety?²¹¹  How, moreover, shall we bring sobriety²¹² to bear on the discharge of (the functions of) modesty, unless seriousness in appearance and in countenance, and in the general aspect²¹³ of the entire man, mark our carriage?