The Instructor 3.2.11

Is it not absurd, then, that horses and birds and the other animals should spring from the grass and the meadows, and fly up, rejoicing in their own adornment, the horse's mane, natural color, and varied plumage, while woman, as if more deficient even than the nature of beasts, thinks herself so lacking in beauty that she needs a foreign beauty, bought and painted on? Headdresses, varieties of headdresses, elaborate plaits, countless styles of hair, and costly mirrors, by which they arrange themselves to hunt those who, like foolish children, are excited by appearances, belong to women who have lost all shame; one would not be wrong to call them courtesans, since they make their faces into masks. But the Word advises us “not to look at what is seen, but at what is not seen; for what is seen is temporary, but what is not seen is eternal.” And going beyond absurdity, they have invented mirrors for their artificial form, as if it were some brave deed or accomplishment, when they should rather put a veil over the deception. For not even Narcissus, as the Greek myth has it, profited from becoming a spectator of his own image.