* * * * *
"GREEN EYES."
(Vol. viii., p. 407.)
In the edition of Longfellow's _Poetical Works_ published by Routledge,
1853, the note quoted by Mr. Temple ends thus:
"Dante speaks of Beatrice's eyes as _emeralds_ (_Purgatorio_, xxxi.
116.). Lami says, in his _Annotazioni_, 'Erano i suoi occhi d' un
turchino verdiccio, simile a quel del mare.'"
More in favour of "green eyes" is to be found in one of Gifford's notes on
his translation of the thirteenth satire of _Juvenal_. The words in the
original are:
"Caerula quis stupuit Germani lumina."--_Juv._ Sat. XIII. 164.
And Gifford's note is as follows:
"Ver. 223 ... and _eyes of sapphire blue_?]--The people of the south
seem to have regarded, as a phenomenon, those blue eyes, which with us
are so common, and, indeed so characteristic of beauty, as to form an
indispensable requisite of every Daphne of Grub Street. Tacitus,
however, from whom Juvenal perhaps borrowed the expression, adds an
epithet to _caerulean_, which makes the common interpretation doubtful.
'The Germans,' he says (_De Mor. Ger._ 4.), 'have _truces et caerulei
oculi_, fierce, lively blue eyes.' With us, this colour is always
indicative of a soft, voluptuous languor. What, then, if we have
hitherto mistaken the sense, and, instead of blue, should have said
sea-green? This is not an uncommon colour, especially in the north. I
have seen many Norwegian seamen with eyes of this hue, which were
invariably quick, keen, and glancing.
"Shakspeare, whom nothing escaped, has put an admirable description of
them into the mouth of Juliet's nurse:
'O he's a lovely man! An eagle, madam,
Hath not so _green_, so quick, so fair an eye,
As Paris hath.'
"Steevens, who had some glimpse of the meaning of this word, refers to
an apposite passage in _The Two Noble Kinsmen_. It is in Aemilia's
address to Diana:
' . . . . . . Oh vouchsafe
With that thy rare _green eye_, which never yet
Beheld things maculate,' &c.
"It is, indeed, not a little singular, that this expression should have
occasioned any difficulty to his commentators; since it occurs in most
of our old poets; {593} and Drummond of Hawthornden uses it
perpetually. One instance of it may be given:
'When Nature now had wonderfully wrought
All Auristella's parts, except her eyes:
To make those twins, two lamps in beauty's skies,
The counsel of the starry synod sought.
Mars and Apollo first did her advise,
To wrap in colours _black_ those comets bright,
That Love him so might soberly disguise,
And, unperceived, wound at every sight!
Chaste Phoeebe spake for purest _azure_ dyes;
But Jove and Venus _green_ about the light,
To frame, thought best, as bringing most delight,
That to pined hearts hope might for aye arise.
Nature, all said, a paradise of _green_
Placed there, to make all love which have them seen.'"
Gifford's _Translation of Juvenal and Persius_,
3rd edition, 1817.
Gifford's quotation from _Romeo and Juliet_ (errors excepted) is to be
found in Act III. Sc. 5.