"GREEN EYES."
Having long been familiar with only one instance of the possession of eyes of this hue—the well-known case of the "green-eyed monster Jealousy,"—and not having been led by that association to think of them as a beauty, I have been surprised lately at finding them not unfrequently seriously admired. Ex. gr.:
"Victorian. How is that and green-eyed Gaditana
That you both wot of?
Don Carlos. Ay, soft emerald eyes!"
Victorian. A pretty girl: and in her tender eyes,
Just that soft shade of green we sometimes see
In evening skies."
Longfellow's Spanish Student, Act II. Sc. 3.
Mr. Longfellow adds in a note:
"The Spaniards, with good reason, consider this colour of the eye as beautiful, and celebrate it in a song; as, for example, in the well-known Villancico:
'Ay ojuelos verdes,
Ay los mis ojuelos,
Ay hagan los cielos
Que de mi te acuerdes!
Tengo confianza,
De mis verdes ojos.'"
Böhl de Faber, Floresta, No. 255.
I have seen somewhere, I think in one of the historical romances of Alexander Dumas (Père), a popular jingle about
"La belle Duchesse de Nevers,
Aux yeux verts," &c.
And lastly, see Two Gentlemen of Verona, Act IV. Sc. 4., where the ordinary text has:
"Her eyes are grey as glass, and so are mine."
Here "The MS. corrector of the folio 1682 converts 'grey' into 'green:' 'Her eyes are green as grass;' and such, we have good reason to suppose, was the true reading." (Collier's Shakspeare Notes and Emendations, p. 25.)
The modern slang, "Do you see anything green in my eye?" can hardly, I suppose, be called in evidence on the question of beauty or ugliness. Is there any more to be found in favour of "green eyes?"
Harry Leroy Temple.