Some people, like Alexander the Great, believe that their sweat spreads a sweet smell, due to some rare and extraordinary complexion, the cause of which Plutarch and others seek. But the common way of the bodies is on the contrary; and the best condition they have is to be free of scent. The sweetness of even the purest halaines has nothing more excellent than being without any odor that offends us, as are those of very healthy children. That is why, said Plautus,
A woman smells good then, where nothing smells:
the most perfect scent of a woman is to smell of nothing, as it is said that the best scent of one’s actions is that they be insensitive and deaf. And one is right to regard those who use good foreign scents with suspicion, and to think that they are used to cover some natural defect in that respect. Hence these encounters of the ancient Poets: it is bad to smell good,
You laugh at us, Coracine, smelling nothing. I would rather smell nothing than smell well. (Martial)
And elsewhere:
A polypus, or a heavy shaggy goat, lies in its wings; Like a dog that is sharp where a pig lies. (Martial)
The simplest and most natural scents seem to me more agreeable. And this care mainly concerns the ladies. In the thickest barbarity, the Scythian women, after having washed themselves, sprinkle and encrust their whole body and face with a certain fragrant drug that grows in their land; and, to approach men, having removed this makeup, they find themselves polished and perfumed. Whatever the smell, it is wonderful how it clings to me, and how my skin is able to drink it in.
Those who complain about nature, about how it has left man without an instrument to bring scents to the nose, are wrong, because they are carried by the scents themselves. But in my particular case, my full moustache helps me. If I bring my gloves or handkerchief close to them, the scent will last all day. They are a sign of where I come from. The narrow kisses of youth, tasty, greedy and sticky, once clung to them and stayed there for several hours.
And yet I find myself little subject to popular diseases, which are spread by conversation and which arise from the contagion of the air; and I have escaped those of my time, of which there have been several kinds in our cities and in our armies. It is said of Socrates that, never having left Athens during the many outbreaks of the plague that tormented it so many times, he alone was never found to have suffered from it.
I believe that doctors could derive more use from odors than they do: for I have often noticed that they change me, and act on my mind according to their nature: which leads me to approve the saying that the use of incense and perfume in Churches, so ancient and widespread in all nations and religions, is intended to delight us, to awaken and purify the senses and make us more fit for contemplation.
I would like, in order to judge, to have had my share of the art of these cooks who know how to season foreign smells with the flavor of meats as was singularly noticed in the service of this King of Thunes, who, in our time, went to Naples to meet with the Emperor Charles. His meats were stuffed with fragrant spices, of such sumptuousness that a peacock and two pheasants cost one hundred ducats, to prepare them in their own way: and, when they were served, filled not only the hall, but all the rooms of his palace, and even the neighboring houses, with a very sweet vapor that did not dissipate so quickly. The main concern I have about accommodation is to escape the stinking, suffocating air. These beautiful cities, Venice and Paris, alter the favor I bear them, with the sour smell, one of its sewers, the other of its mud.