Girls! Glamour! Barley!
A Practical Guide to Ovid’s Medicamina Faciei Femineae
If you have taken John Kuhner’s advice and dived into the OCT of the Amores, you’ll find that sandwiched between it and the Ars Amatoria is a curious little fragment, Medicamina Faciei Femineae. This is sometimes called “On Cosmetics” and sometimes “The Art of Beauty” and sometimes “Face Cosmetics.” You get the idea — Ovid is going to tell all us ladies how to pretty ourselves up.
Depending on your point of view you may find it a happy or sad fact that the Medicamina has not survived intact. But if you are looking for a chaser to the comparatively long read of the Amores, or find yourself dipping your toes into Ovid’s elegiac couplets for the first time, reading Ovid’s beauty advice is going to improve your Latin, make you laugh, and give you multiple ideas for your own cottage industry.
The Medicamina is an example of what is usually called didactic literature, which purports to convey practical knowledge. Didactic poetry always prompts questions like “is he for real?” and “would anybody ever really use this poem as a handbook on make-up?” One tends to think not, but I’ll try to answer those more fully below. Suffice to say, Ovid stays true to form here. If the Amores takes love elegy as far as it can go, one can see the Medicamina as a cap on all those ancient poems about astral knowledge, meteorology, farming and fishing. What does an urban, girl-mad poet have to contribute to that genre? How to achieve pimple-free skin, of course.
In case you thought about skipping makeup altogether, Ovid’s opening plainly discourages this behavior:
Discite quae faciem commendet cura, puellae,
et quo sit vobis forma tuenda modo.Learn what care is recommended for your appearance, girls,
And how you should preserve your beauty.
Ovid then discloses that women’s faces, just like barren fields and undyed wool, are considerably improved by a little tending. These sentiments are fairly standard — Aristotelian even. Women are formless lumps, fields to be plowed, raw material to be worked over. They are more aligned with nature than culture (as Anne Carsondetailed many years ago). If Ovid stopped here, we might be tempted to dismiss him as a latter day Semonides or Hesiod. But he doesn’t stop, and that’s where the poem gets interesting.
Ovid swerves toward a contemporary, Italian milieu: Sabine ancestors may have been happy to work the land instead of their faces, but today’s Roman woman is plainly different. If Ovid starts off traditional, he quickly becomes all affirmation of the urban woman — of course we want pretty clothes, and nice jewelry and fun hairstyles. And why not? Everyone likes to look good:
Nec tamen indignum: sit vobis cura placendi,
Cum comptos habeant saecula nostra viros.Still it’s not shameful: you should be concerned with pleasing,
Since our generation even produces well-turned out men. (23–4)
One of the delightful surprises of the Medicamina is Ovid’s emphasis on women taking pleasure in their beauty for themselves.
Se sibi quaeque parant, nec quos venerentur amores
Refert; munditia crimina nulla meret.
Rure latent finguntque comas; licet arduus illas
Celet Athos, cultas altus habebit Athos.
Est etiam placuisse sibi cuicumque voluptas;
Virginibus cordi grataque forma sua est.Each woman prepares herself for herself, nor does it matter
What loves they honor; an elegant appearance deserves no censure.
In the country women hide away and fix their hair; although steep
Athos conceals them, high Athos will have stylish girls.
There is also desire for each one to have pleased herself;
Her own beauty is dear and pleasing to young women. (27–32)
Reading this for the first time in a long time, I thought affectionately of my younger self, getting dressed with my girlfriends in grad school for a night out. In our early twenties we were a hodge-podge of relationship statuses that were ever in flux, but going out with women was about making ourselves beautiful for ourselves — Est etiam placuisse sibi cuicumque voluptas.
Ovid points us toward a question that I can’t answer — why do we humans — and here particularly women — want to make ourselves beautiful? Why does the woman alone on Mt. Athos cultivate her beauty? Lots of people have tried to answer this is various ways over the millennia: to attract a mate, to compete with other women, to enact a ritual, to present a different self, to fulfill a cultural construct. Yet, when I think of those evenings of my youth — of sharing lipsticks and clothing, admiring each other’s appearance, trading gossip and listening to music — so much of that was about forming relationships that were solidified by the intimacy of these acts. Personal adornment, as Ovid recognizes, is not necessary to human survival, and likely frowned upon by our dour Sabine mothers. Yet, both Roman men and women saw the cultivation of the body as desirable — perhaps because it was and is an act of luxury. To take both the time and effort to style your hair or pluck your eyebrows or — egad! — to moisturize, especially when alone for no particular reason, elevates the quotidian. I am under no illusion that the mud mask I use will magically transform my pores or cause my husband to swoon as a result of my glowing skin. Yet the experience, both meditative and ritualistic, entails choosing myself instead of paying bills or doing another load of laundry. And in that, it feels transgressive.
Ovid, of course, might be called obsessed with transgression. The Heroides, the Amores, the Ars Amatoria and of course the Metamorphoses could all be read as experiments in what happens when you take a genre or a poetic convention and turn it on its head. Yet, perhaps the most surprising part of the Medicamina is Ovid’s final warning before he dives into his list of beauty treatments:
Prima sit in vobis morum tutela, puellae:
ingenio facies conciliante placet.
Certus amor morum est: formam populabitur aetas,
Et placitus rugis vultus aratus erit;
Tempus erit quo vos speculum vidisse pigebit
Et veniet rugis altera causa dolor.
Sufficit et longum probitas perdurat in aevum,
perque suos annos hinc bene pendet amor.Girls, let protection of your character be your first concern:
Your appearance is pleasing when your disposition is endearing.
Love of good character is secure: age will ravage your beauty,
And a pleasing face will be plowed with wrinkles;
There will be a time when it will disgust you to look in the mirror
And sorrow will become another source of wrinkles.
Honesty lays a foundation and endures for a long time,
And on it love depends throughout its years. (43–50)
So, what is your best beauty treatment, ladies? Solid moral fiber? Is this really Ovid? Yes, indeed, and as my face becomes increasingly rugose, I am more charmed than ever by his assessment.
Ovidian Cosmetics
Still and all, if cultivating your moral garden is not exactly what you were hoping for from Ovid’s treatise, he immediately follows this caution with a series of recipes, before the work (sadly) breaks off. Many of these are not unlike others you might find in Pliny, for example, and so you can argue about whether they represent “real” cosmetic recipes or if they are intended as a kind of mock beauty treatment. Because as a reviewer I take my job very seriously — and because the Midwestern winter weather is not doing my skin any favors — I decided to try (as best I can) to make Ovid’s first beauty treatment, for a candidum os (51–68). He includes a second recipe for similar results (though since it contains lead I chose not to make that one), as well as three for blotchy skin or pimples and what seems to be the beginning of a recipe for homemade rouge.
If you are looking to read up on the Medicamina, you can consult the Oxford Classical Text, the Loeb or Perseus, but for the money Marguerite Johnson’s recent Ovid on Cosmetics (Bloomsbury 2016) is worth every penny, not least because she converts all the recipes to both the English and metric systems. I would suggest that if you are inclined to make any of the treatments, you might first want to make a fraction of the called for amount, since it seems that Ovid’s recipes make enough for an entire village:
Hordea, quae Libyci ratibus misere coloni,
Exue de palea tegminibusque suis.
Par ervi mensura decem madefiat ab ovis:
Sed cumulent libras hordea nuda duas.
Haec ubi ventosas fuerint siccata per auras,
Lenta iube scabra frangat asella mola:
Et quae prima cadent vivaci cornua cervo,
contere in haec (solidi sexta fac assis eat).
Iamque ubi pulvereae fuerint confusa farinae,
protinus in cumeris omnia cerne cavis.
Adice narcissi bis sex sine cortice bulbos,
Strenua quos puro marmore dextra terat.
Sextantemque trahat gummi cum semine Tusco:
Huc novies tanto plus tibi mellis eat. (53–65)
Johnson elegantly translates the first recipe (lines 53–65):
Strip the barley, which farmers from Libya have sent by ship,
Of its husks and covering:
An equal measure of bitter vetch is soaked in ten eggs:
But stripped barley should amount to two librae.
Once dried by gusty breezes, have these
crushed on a rough millstone by a slow she-ass.
Grind into this the first horns that fall from a long-lived stag –
See that a sixth of a whole as goes in.
Next, having mixed this into the pounded meal, you must
Immediately sift every last granule through closely-meshed strainers,
Add twelve narcissus bulbs minus the rind
(which a vigorous right-hand should grind on clean marble)
And let gum along with Tuscan seed weigh one-sixth of an as;
Into it let there go nine times as much honey.
Putting It Into Practice
Well, you can probably see my dilemma already. Doing a little research, I made a few modifications. My recipe follows:
65 g hulled barley [use barley flour for better consistency, if you can]
65 g red lentils
1 egg
6 g deer antler, grated
1 narcissus bulb, crushed.
6 g acacia fiber powder
6 g spelt flour
50 g honey
(1) Bring barley and lentils to a boil with 150 ml of water. Reduce heat and simmer until soft and water is absorbed. (You will need to watch the mixture carefully and stir constantly toward the end to keep it from burning.)
(2) Spread barley lentil mixture into a thin layer on a sheet pan and dry several hours (overnight will work).
(3) In a food processor mix the lentil barley mixture till smooth (it will clump). Add egg and grated deer antler, and pulse till combined.
(4) Add narcissus bulb, acacia fiber powder and spelt flour. Pulse till combined. The mixture should be fairly smooth.
(5) Scrape barley mixture into a bowl and stir in the honey. Your Ovidian concoction is ready to use!
Johnson has lots of detailed notes about why these ingredients were used and why they might actually be beneficial to your skin — all fascinating stuff. Whether my mixture looked anything like what the ancients might use is impossible to say — it rather resembles hummus. And it certainly made enough for me to use for months. But I know what you can’t wait to hear: does it work?
I can’t imagine that anyone would really use this as a moisturizer — look at the consistency! Instead, I decided to try it as both a facial mask and a cleanser. If I were to make it again, I would use barley flour (which I did not have on hand), because I think it would yield a smoother consistency: the chunkiness made it tricky to smear in a uniform layer (but when your slow she-ass is on vacation…). Still, I left it on for about fifteen minutes, and it felt…well, like a facial mask. The acacia provides just a little astringency and the honey a really pleasing aroma. After washing it off, my skin felt soft and definitely tighter. Since then I’ve been using it in the morning as a cleanser. Again, the gloppiness makes it a little unwieldy, but using about a tablespoon’s worth cleanses well (I suspect the spelt is ever so slightly abrasive). And you don’t have that tight, dry feeling that you get after washing with soap.
The Upshot
Does it work: Surprisingly, yes.
Hassle factor: I thought it was going to take me a year to grate 2 g of antler. But otherwise, more hassle than making hummus, but less than making veggie burgers.
Cost: Darn cheap. $1.88 makes about two cups worth. Compare that with anything at your local pharmacy.
So, maybe Ovid did really know something about female beauty. And you all now know what you’re getting from me in your stocking this year.
[This is one of a series of essays about reading Ovid at his bimillennial. For more information about the series, and links to other essays, click on the link below.]
Elizabeth Manwell blends herbal teas, makes her own cough syrup and lives with a one-eyed black cat. When not drawing down the moon, she teaches Classics at Kalamazoo College.
