“What
should I do with him—dress him in my apparel and make him my waiting
gentlewoman? He that hath a beard is more than a youth, and he that hath no beard
is less than a man; and he that is more than a youth is not for me, and he that
is less than a man, I am not for him.”
William Shakespeare, 1623.
- This quote, taken from Shakespeare’s ‘Much Ado About Nothing”, explains how the character Beatrice is failing in her search for the perfect man, because no one will quite live up to her expectations. In the quote she says how men who possess no facial hair are not manly enough for her, whereas those who do possess facial hair, particularly beards, are not youthful enough for her. In the Elizabethan times, it was said that men who possessed a little facial hair, maybe a moustache, but not a fully-grown beard were very sexually desired. So a man that was between the stages of youth and adulthood was a sexual ideal at the time. In fact, the beardless adolescent attracted both men and woman during the Elizabethan stage.
William Shakespeare, 1623.
- This quote, taken from Shakespeare’s ‘Much Ado About Nothing”, explains how the character Beatrice is failing in her search for the perfect man, because no one will quite live up to her expectations. In the quote she says how men who possess no facial hair are not manly enough for her, whereas those who do possess facial hair, particularly beards, are not youthful enough for her. In the Elizabethan times, it was said that men who possessed a little facial hair, maybe a moustache, but not a fully-grown beard were very sexually desired. So a man that was between the stages of youth and adulthood was a sexual ideal at the time. In fact, the beardless adolescent attracted both men and woman during the Elizabethan stage.
"Then followeth the trimming and tricking of their beds in laying out their hair to the show, which of force must be curled, frizzled and crisped, laid out on wreathes & borders from one eare to an other. And lest it should fall down, it is underpropped with forks, wyres, & I can not tel what, rather like grim stern monsters, that chaste christian matrones. Then on the edges of their bolstered heir (for it standeth crested round about their frontiers, & hanging over their faces like pen dices or fails with glasse windows on every side) there is lady great wreathes of gold and silver, curiously wrought & cunningly applied to the temples of their heads. And for feare of lacking any thing to set foorth their pride withal, at their heyre, thus wreathed and crested, are hanged bugles, ouches, rings, gold, silver, glasses, & such other gewgaws and trinkets besides, which, for that they be innumerable, and I unskilfull in wemens terms, I cannot easily recount."
Philip Stubbes, 1583.
Here are some images/objects that come to mind when I read this quote:
Here are some images/objects that come to mind when I read this quote:
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