Milton, in Il Penseroso, also speaks of night as “the starred Ethiop queen”; and Shakespeare, in Romeo and Juliet, has these lines:
“Her beauty hangs upon the cheek of night
As a rich jewel in an Ethiop ear.”
The source of inspiration is the same to all world-poets, who only differ sometimes in the jars they bring to the source.
[XIII]
The purple, white, and gray garments, symbolizing Man’s dreams of power, of love, and of bliss.
[XIV]
The same idea is expressed by Omar Khayyam. Here are the first three lines of the 122nd quatrain of Heron-Allen’s literal translation: