IL se dit d’aucuns, comme d’Alexandre le grand, que leur sueur espandoit vn’ odeur souefue, par quelque rare et extraordinaire complexion: dequoy Plutarque et autres recherchent la cause. Mais la commune façon des corps est au contraire: et la meilleure condition qu’ils ayent, c’est d’estre exempts de senteur. La douceur mesme des haleines plus pures, n’a rien de plus parfaict, que d’estre sans aucune odeur, qui nous offence: comme sont celles des enfans bien sains. Voyla pourquoy dit Plaute, Mulier tum benè olet, vbi nihil olet. La plus exquise senteur d’vne femme, c’est ne sentir rien.
It is said of some people, like Alexander the Great, that their sweat gave off a sweet smell, owing to some rare and extraordinary constitution; Plutarch and others look for the cause of it. But the common way of bodies is the contrary, and the best condition they can be in is to be free of smell. Even the sweetness of the purest breath has nothing more perfect about it than to be without any odor that offends us, like the breath of very healthy children. That is why, says Plautus, A woman smells good when she smells of nothing. The most exquisite scent of a woman is to smell of nothing.
Et les bonnes senteurs estrangeres, on a raison de les tenir pour suspectes, à ceux qui s’en seruent, et d’estimer qu’elles soyent employées pour couurir quelque defaut naturel de ce costé-là. D’où naissent ces rencontres des poëtes anciens, c’est puïr que sentir bon. Rides nos, Coracine, nil olentes: / Malo quàm benè olere, nil olere. Et ailleurs, Posthume, non benè olet, qui benè semper olet.
And borrowed perfumes, however good, we are right to regard as suspect in those who use them, and to think they are used to cover some natural defect in that quarter. Hence those quips of the ancient poets: to smell good is to stink. You laugh at us, Coracinus, because we smell of nothing: / I would rather smell of nothing than smell good. And elsewhere: Postumus, he who always smells good does not smell good.
I’ayme pourtant bien fort à estre entretenu de bonnes senteurs, et hay outre mesure les mauuaises, que ie tire de plus loing que toute autre: Namque sagacius vnus odoror, / Polypus, an grauis hirsutis cubet hircus in alis, / Quàm canis acer vbi lateat sus. Les senteurs plus simples et naturelles, me semblent plus aggreables.
Yet I am very fond of being surrounded by good smells, and I hate bad ones beyond measure, and I catch them from farther off than anyone else: For I alone sniff out more keenly, / whether a polyp or a rank goat lurks in hairy armpits, / than a keen hound sniffs out where the boar is hiding. The simplest and most natural scents seem to me the most agreeable.
Et touche ce soing principalement les dames. En la plus espesse barbarie, les femmes Scythes, apres s’estre lauées, se saupoudrent et encroustent tout le corps et le visage, de certaine drogue, qui naist en leur terroir, odoriferante. Et pour approcher les hommes, ayans osté ce fard, elles s’en trouuent et polies et parfumées.
And this concern is chiefly the ladies’ business. In the thickest barbarism, the Scythian women, after washing, powder and encrust their whole body and face with a certain fragrant drug that grows in their land; and when they have removed this paint to approach the men, they find themselves both smooth and perfumed.
Quelque odeur que ce soit, c’est merueille combien elle s’attache à moy, et combien i’ay la peau propre à s’en abreuuer. Celuy qui se plaint de nature dequoy elle a laissé l’homme sans instrument à porter les senteurs au nez, a tort: car elles se portent elles mesmes. Mais à moy particulierement, les moustaches que i’ay pleines, m’en seruent: si i’en approche mes gans, ou mon mouchoir, l’odeur y tiendra tout vn iour: elles accusent le lieu d’où ie viens: les estroits baisers de la ieunesse, sauoureux, gloutons et gluans, s’y colloient autrefois, et s’y tenoient plusieurs heures apres.
Whatever smell it may be, it is marvelous how it clings to me, and how apt my skin is to soak it up. The man who complains that nature left us without an instrument for carrying smells to the nose is wrong, for smells carry themselves. But in my case particularly, my moustache, which is thick, does the job: if I bring my gloves or my handkerchief near it, the smell will stay there a whole day. It gives away where I have been. The close kisses of youth, savory, greedy and sticky, used to glue themselves to it and stay there for several hours afterwards.
Et si pourtant ie me trouue peu subiect aux maladies populaires, qui se chargent par la conuersation, et qui naissent de la contagion de l’air; et me suis sauué de celles de mon temps, dequoy il y en a eu plusieurs sortes en nos villes, et en noz armées. On lit de Socrates, que n’estant iamais party d’Athenes pendant plusieurs recheutes de peste, qui la tourmenterent tant de fois, luy seul ne s’en trouua iamais plus mal.
And yet I find myself little subject to epidemic diseases, which are caught from contact with people and arise from infection of the air; and I have escaped those of my time, of which there have been several kinds in our towns and in our armies. We read of Socrates that, though he never left Athens during the many recurrences of plague that tormented it so often, he alone was never the worse for it.
Les medecins pourroient, ce crois-ie, tirer des odeurs, plus d’vsage qu’ils ne font: car i’ay souuent apperçeu qu’elles me changent, et agissent en mes esprits, selon qu’elles sont. Qui me fait approuuer ce qu’on dit, que l’inuention des encens et parfuns aux Eglises, si ancienne et espandue en toutes nations et religions, regarde à cela, de nous resiouir, esueiller et purifier le sens, pour nous rendre plus propres à la contemplation.
Physicians could, I believe, make more use of smells than they do; for I have often noticed that they change me and act on my spirits according to what they are. This makes me approve what people say, that the use of incense and perfumes in churches, so ancient and so widespread among all nations and religions, aims at this: to gladden, rouse and purify our senses, to make us fitter for contemplation.
Ie voudrois bien pour en iuger, auoir eu ma part de l’ouurage de ces cuisiniers, qui sçauent assaisonner les odeurs estrangeres, auec la saueur des viandes. Comme on remarqua singulierement au seruice du Roy de Thunes, qui de nostre aage print terre à Naples, pour s’aboucher auec l’Empereur Charles. On farcissoit ses viandes de drogues odoriferantes, en telle somptuosité, qu’vn Paon, et deux Faisans, se trouuerent sur ses parties, reuenir à cent ducats, pour les apprester selon leur maniere. Et quand on les despeçoit, non la salle seulement, mais toutes les chambres de son Palais, et les rues d’autour, estoient remplies d’vne tres-soüefue vapeur, qui ne s’esuanouissoit pas si soudain.
In order to judge of it, I would very much have liked to have had a share in the handiwork of those cooks who know how to season foods with foreign fragrances as well as with their own flavor. This was particularly remarked in the service of the King of Tunis, who in our time landed at Naples to confer with the Emperor Charles. His dishes were stuffed with fragrant spices with such lavishness that a peacock and two pheasants came, according to his accounts, to a hundred ducats to prepare in their fashion. And when they were carved, not only the hall but all the rooms of his palace and the streets around were filled with a very sweet vapor that did not vanish quickly.
Le principal soing que i’aye à me loger, c’est de fuir l’air puant et pesant. Ces belles villes, Venise et Paris, alterent la faueur que ie leur porte, par l’aigre senteur, l’vne de son maraits, l’autre de sa boue.
My chief concern in choosing where to live is to avoid stinking, heavy air. Those beautiful cities, Venice and Paris, spoil the affection I have for them by their sharp smell: the one from its marshes, the other from its mud.