Letter 520

To Julia the Countess [komētissa, the wife of a comes]. Exceedingly well does the saying of Scripture fit you. For it says: As a gold ring in a swine's snout, so is beauty in an ill-minded woman [Proverbs 11:22]. For who among the right-minded would not lament over a woman who has beauty by nature but uses it badly, who wallows in filth and lives dissolutely, who is unrestrained toward every form of profligacy and is mad with passion for strange men; who makes herself glisten with raiment and gold and precious stones, and zealously beautifies her foul-smelling little flesh with manifold luxuries, and with baths, and with sweet-smelling unguents, while she overlooks her own soul as though it were a stranger's, leaving it naked of every good work, and wholly unadorned, and wounded, and estranged from the virtues, and ever pining away, and famished, and corrupted by the defilements of licentiousness?

Αἴαν ἐφαρμόζει σοι τὸ λόγιον τῆς Γραφῆς. Ὥσπερ γάρ, φησίν, ἐνώτιον χρυσοῦν ἐν ῥινὶ χοίρου, οὕτως κάλλος τῇ κακόφρονι γυναικί. Τίς γὰρ ἂν μὴ θρηνήσειε τῶν εὖ φρονούντων, τὸ μὲν κάλλος ἐκ φύσεως ἔχουσαν, κακῶς δὲ τούτῳ χρωμένην, βερβομένην τε καὶ ἀσωτευομένην, ἀνεπιστρεμμένην πρὸς πᾶσαν ἀσωτίαν, καὶ ἐπιμαινομένην ἀλλοτρίοις ἀνδράσι, καὶ ἱματισμῷ μὲν καὶ χρυσῷ, καὶ πολυτίμοις λίθοις στιλβώσουσαν ἑαυτήν, καὶ τὸ δυσῶδες σαρκίον σπουδαίως φιλοκαλοῦσαν ποικίλαις τρυφαῖς, καὶ βαλανείοις, καὶ εὐώδεσι χρίσμασι, τὴν δὲ ψυχὴν ἑαυτῆς ὡς ἀλλοτρίαν περιορῶσαν, γυμνήν τε ἀπάρχουσαν παντὸς ἀγαθοῦ ἔργου, καὶ ὅλην ἀκόσμητον, καὶ τετραυματισμένην, ἠλλοτριωμένην τε τῶν ἀρετῶν, καὶ προσάζουσαν ἀεί, καὶ λιμώττουσαν, καὶ καταφθειρομένην τοῖς τῆς ἀσελγίας μολύσμασιν;