CONCERNING ODOURS, 38-41 



Those which last longest are the Egyptian, the 

 iris, the sweet marjoram and the spikenard perfumes : 

 but myrrh-oil has the longest life of any ; for it will 

 keep any time. A certain perfumer said that he 

 had had Egyptian perfume in his shop for eight 

 years, and iris-perfume for twenty, and that it was 

 still in good case, in fact better than fresh perfume. 

 These are instances of perfumes which will keep a 

 long time. 



On the other hand all those made from flowers 

 have little vigour. These are usually at their best 

 after two months, but they deteriorate when a year 

 has past and the season has come round again at 

 which the flowers are at their best. Also, as these 

 perfumes lack vigour, so also do they quickly mellow, 

 and, in most cases, quickly evaporate. Those made 

 from roots and the other parts of the plant last 

 longer, their odour being fuller stronger and more 

 substantial. 



Perfumes are ruined by a hot season or place or 

 by being put in the sun. This is why perfumers 

 seek upper rooms which do not face the sun but are 

 shaded as much as possible. For the sun or a hot 

 place deprives the perfumes of their odour, and in 

 general makes them lose their character more than 

 cold treatment : while cold and frost, even if they 

 make them less odorous by congealing them, yet da 

 not altogether deprive them of their virtue. For 

 the most destructive thing that can happen to them, 

 as to wines and other savours, is that they should be 

 deprived of their proper heat. This is why men put 

 them into vessels of lead and try to secure phials of 

 alabaster a stone which has the required effect : 

 for lead is cold and of close texture, and stone has 



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