THE OLD LANGUAGE OF GREEN
“Hope rules a land for ever green.”--WORDSWORTH.
“Hope rules a land for ever green,” says Wordsworth. He means a land
where nothing dies, for green is the colour of plant life, the colour
of spring and of all that is fresh and young and joyous.
When looking at Watts’ picture of Hope, we see that she sits almost
like a picture of Despair, but she is trying to obtain music from
her one last string. We notice that the green Watts uses is of a
particularly hard, bluish character, so unlike the joyous green of
spring. When Rossetti in “Dante’s Dream” depicts the two maidens
lifting the veil from the face of Beatrice, we notice what a full
rich green he uses for their robes, for he wishes to make his colour
proclaim the fact that he feels no despair, but a sublime Hope and
Faith which will go with him until the time that Beatrice will draw him
into the “yellow of the Rose Eternal.”
Shelley understood that green meant hope and gladness, for he wrote:--
“Many a green isle needs must be
In the deep, wide sea of Misery,
Or the mariner worn and wan
Never thus could journey on
Day and night, and night and day,
Drifting on his weary way,
With the solid darkness black
Closing round his vessel’s track:
Whilst above, the sunless sky
Big with clouds hangs heavily;
And behind, the tempest fleet,
Hurries on with lightning feet,
Riving sail, and cord, and plank,
Till the ship has almost drank
Death from the o’er-brimming deep,
And sinks down, down, like that sleep
When the dreamer seems to be
Weltering through eternity.”
Among the ancient Druids of Wales, green was the colour of the robes
of the “ovates,” that is, the men who were hoping to become bards or
Druids later.
The colour green was used by the people of the East with a much deeper
significance, however. The Hindoos said that Om, the Sun, drove across
the sky in a chariot drawn by a green horse with seven heads, and
preceded by Aruna, the Dawn. As we have no green horses in nature,
the statement must be highly symbolic. Horses are always a sign of
knowledge.[9] In the old Hindoo zodiacs, instead of the constellation
Aries or the Ram, we often have a horse. Aries is the sign governing
the head or mentality. The horse is used in exactly the same way.
The number seven means what is complete in both body and spirit, for
it contains the basic four (which is the number of man, who has to
perfect his fourfold nature--body, mind, soul, and spirit), and also it
contains the three, which is the perfection of the Trinity, for every
great religion has contained a Trinity. Thus we see that seven refers
to perfection in all things, whether of heaven or of earth. What, then,
do we mean by a seven-headed _green_ horse? This--that the knowledge
and wisdom of Om are eternal, everlasting, all-enduring, and that they
comprehend the whole universe.
[9] _Cf._ Sanskrit “harit” = (1) a horse, (2) the light, bright,
shining. _Cf._ Pegasus, the winged horse of the Muses, in poetical
imagination.
In Palestine St George is sometimes called “the everlasting green one,”
for the fight between good and evil is never-ending, but to the true St
George the victory is ever assured.
Time was addressed by the Egyptians as the “everlasting green one,” for
the main experiences of life are the same to everyone, whether born now
or hundreds of years ago. External circumstances alter, but each person
has the same lessons to learn. The Fortunate Isles of the Greeks and
the Islands of the Blessed of the North American Indians are said to
have been green. Nearly all evergreen plants were considered especially
sacred. Edgar Allan Poe addressed his love as
“A green isle in the sea.”
The Hindoos say that the emerald gives the gift of knowledge and
memory. It also gives the ability to tell the future, even as the green
laurel tree of Apollo did. The emerald also confers immortality on the
soul, and enables it to gain faith. This belief will surely explain why
greenstone amulets are so common in the tombs of the Egyptians, for
faith would bring them safely to the Fields of Peace, where immortality
was enjoyed.
Isis, the goddess of the crescent moon, which often mystically means
the pure soul, is sometimes called the “Lady of the Emerald”--that is,
she whose soul is pure enough to gain immortality.
When Pizarro went to Mexico he found that a goddess there was
worshipped as the Goddess of the Emerald.
The emerald is often seen on the breastplates of Pallas and of Minerva,
for both these goddesses stand for the Divine mind--the all-enduring
Wisdom. The Virgin Mary is often represented clothed in a green mantle
and standing on the crescent moon. She has faith and hope until the
Day-star awakes in her heart. The walls of the New Jerusalem are seen
by John in Revelation to be made of jasper. The New Jerusalem, like
the Ark and the Temple, is said by mystics to be a soul symbol; hence,
how appropriate that the green jasper should be the material of which
it is said to be made! Among the Chinese, Tao is said to have been
miraculously born of “the excellent Virgin of Jasper.”
Green is sometimes said to be the colour of the planet
Mercury,[10] which is the planet governing the mind and conferring
knowledge--knowledge not only of the kind essential to material
success, but also inspirational knowledge and celestial wisdom. The god
Mercury had assigned to him nearly all the main attributes of Hermes,
just as Hermes in the same way received the main characteristics of
Thot and his companion Anubis. The “green hill of Anubis,” where the
good souls were directed, is the hill of everlasting life and of
Eternal Wisdom. Thot also had green hills dedicated to him. It is
probably due to the Phœnicians that we have place names perpetuating
this fact, _e.g._ Toot’s Hill in Epping Forest, Tothill Street,
Tooting, and Tewkesbury. In Christian times the archangel Michael
was given the work and attributes of these gods; and surely it is
marvellous the number of hills and rocks sacred to St Michael, while in
ancient pictures we often see him conducting the souls of the departed
to the green hill of Zion.
[10] See Appendix II.
When we think of the great gifts symbolised by green, how full of
meaning seems the green turban of the Mohammedan who has visited Mecca!
We can also realise what great truths could have been taught, and no
doubt were, in the “Green Schools”[11] of the Persian sufis.
[11] See Appendix I.
* * * * *
Green in its degraded sense gives us “the green-eyed monster
jealousy,” which is the direct opposite of celestial wisdom, for
jealousy is always due to the intrusion of the desires of the self,
while celestial wisdom wishes to give rather than to receive. The
colour green is often said to forebode death. This idea may be a
survival of the ancient worship of Mercury, and even of St Michael[12]
in Christian times, both of whom were messengers of death.
[12] See picture of St Michael presenting taper of death to the Virgin
(Fra Filippo Lippi).