Pierre de Brantôme

Pierre de Bourdeille (c. 1540 – 15 July 1614), Abbé Seigneur de Brantôme, was a French memoirist, soldier and biographer.

Quotes

Vies des dames galantes

The Lives of the Gallant Ladies, 2 vols. (The Alexandrian Society, Inc., 1922)

• A fair body, if it have not a fair mind to match, is more like a mere image of itself or idol than a true human body.
  • Volume 1, Second Discourse, Part 2: Of the Power of Speech in Love

• Three things white: skin, teeth and hands.
  Three black: eyes, brows and lids.
  Three red: lips, cheeks and nails.
  Three long: body, hair and hands.
  Three short: teeth, ears and feet.
  Three wide: chest or bosom, forehead and space betwixt the eyes.
  Three narrow: mouth (upper and lower), girth or waist, and ankle.
  Three big and thick: arm, thigh and calf.
  Three long and fine: fingers, hair and lips.
  Three small and delicate: breasts, nose and head.
  • Volume 1, Second Discourse, Part 3: Of the Power of Sight in Love
  • "The Spaniard saith that to make a woman all perfect, complete and absolute in loveliness, she must needs have thirty several beauties, the which a Spanish lady did once enumerate to me at Toledo, a city where be very fair and charming women, and well instructed to boot."