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eventeenth-century writers of treatises on cosmetics are fond of retelling the classical story of a Greek prostitute called Phryne who was playing the game of follow-the-leader with her friends a t a feast. When her turn came, Phryne called for a bowl of water and washed her face. The other women, bound by the rules of the game, had to wash their faces as well. Because she was young and naturally beautiful, Phryne looked none the worse without her cosmetics. But the other women, whose faces were heavily painted, were disgraced because they appeared ugly and deformed when their make-up washed off.' This story reveals two basic points about seventeenth-century attitudes towards women and cosmetics. Most noticeable in the story is the popular association between cosmetics, prostitution, and trickery. The notion that face-painting is associated with o r leads to sexual promiscuity and deception is prevalent in seventeenth-century literature. The story also suggests the common seventeenth-century habit of dichotomizing women into the two extremes of the painted, artificial beauty and the untainted, natural beauty.The association between face-painting and deceit is apparent in the word fucus, a Latin term which originally meant red dye, rouge, or false color but which was used by seventeenth-century writers t o mean cosmetics. In t h e seventeenth-century (as in classical times), fucus means not only paint or cosmetic for beautifying the skin. Fucus also implies pretence, disguise, deceit, dissimulation. As the Puritan author of one cosmetic treatise puts it:Fvcus is paint, andfucus is deceit, And fucus they vse, that doe meane to cheat. Me thinks the very name should stirre vp shame, And make it hateful1 to each modest Dame. 31

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