(iI. i. 20.)
She herself in ironical self-disparagement avows that she is “wrinkled deep in time” (i. v. 29) and exclaims:
Though age from folly could not give me freedom,
It does from childishness.
(I. iii. 57.)
But what then? Like Helen and Gudrun and the ladies of romance, or like Ninon de Lenclos in actual life, she never grows old. As even the cynical Enobarbus proclaims, “age cannot wither her.” She has only gained skill and experience in the use and embellishment of her physical charms, and with these the added charms of grace, culture, expressiveness. She knows how to set off her attractions with all the aids of art, wealth and effect, as we see from the mise-en-scène at the Cydnus: and her mobility and address, her wit, her surprises, her range of interest do the rest. Again Shakespeare has got the clue from Plutarch:
Now her beawtie (as it is reported) was not so passing, as unmatchable of other women,[215] nor yet suche, as upon present viewe did enamor men with her; but so sweete was her companie and conversacion, that a man could not possiblie but be taken. And besides her beawtie, the good grace she had to talke and discourse, her curteous nature that tempered her words and dedes, was a spurre that pricked to the quick. Furthermore, besides all these, her voyce and words were marvelous pleasant; for her tongue was an instrument of musicke to divers sports and pastimes, the which she easely turned to any language that pleased her.
In one respect Shakespeare differs from Plutarch; he bestows on her surpassing and unmatchable beauty, so that she transcends the artist’s ideal as much as that transcends mortal womanhood; she o’er-pictures
that Venus where we see
The fancy outwork nature.[216]