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Instead of giving his daughter silk and satin robes, he impressed upon her the wise saw: 'Mulier superbe amicta, in facie picta, in sermone ficta non uni vitio est addicta' The woman who flaunts in frippery, paints her face, and talks mincingly, is the slave of more than one vice already.
The Book of the Great Art was not published till six years after Cardan had become the sharer of Tartaglia's secret, which had thus had ample time to germinate and bear fruit in the fertile brain upon which it was cast. It is almost certain that the treatise as a whole leaving out of account the special question of the solution of cubic equations must have gained enormously in completeness and lucidity from the fresh knowledge revealed to the writer thereof by Tartaglia's reluctant disclosure, and, over and beyond this, it must be borne in mind that Cardan had been working for several years at Giovanni Colla's questions in conjunction with Ferrari, an algebraist as famous as Tartaglia or himself. The opening chapters of the book show that Cardan was well acquainted with the chief properties of the roots of equations of all sorts. He lays it down that all square numbers have two different kinds of root, one positive and one negative, vera and ficta: thus the root of 9 is either 3. or
Vera Gloria radices agit, atque etiam propagatur: Ficta omnia celeriter, tanquam flosculi, decidunt, nec simulatum potest quidquam esse diuturnum. Tull. Of all the Affections which attend Human Life, the Love of Glory is the most Ardent. According as this is Cultivated in Princes, it produces the greatest Good or the greatest Evil.
It should also be remembered that affectation is recognized at once, even before it is clear what it is that is being affected. And, finally, affectation cannot last very long, and one day the mask will fall off. Nemo potest personam diu ferre fictam, says Seneca; ficta cito in naturam suam recidunt no one can persevere long in a fictitious character; for nature will soon reassert itself.
Against the first of these Varro fulminated forth all the shafts of his satire: In eo multa sunt contra dignitatem et naturam immortalium ficta ... quae non modo in hominem, sed etiam quae in contemptissimum hominem cadere possunt. About the second he did not say much, except guardedly to imply that it was not fitted for a popular ceremonial.
Poesy must resemble Natural Truth; but it must be Ethical. Indeed the Poet dresses Truth, and adorns Nature; but does not alter them. Ficta voluptatis causa sint proxima veris. In Variety of Fancy, and Sweetness of Expression, you see OVID far above him; for VIRGIL rejected many of those things which OVID wrote.
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