§ 44. Again: I said the Greek liked purple, as a general source of enjoyment, better than any other color. So he did, and so all healthy persons who have eye for color, and are unprejudiced about it, do; and will to the end of time, for a reason presently to be noted. But so far was this instinctive preference for purple from giving, in the Greek mind, any consistently cheerful or sacred association to the color, that Homer constantly calls death "purple death."
§ 45. Again: in the passage of Sophocles, so often spoken of, I said there was some difficulty respecting a word often translated "thickets." I believe, myself, it means glades; literally, "going places" in the woods,—that is to say, places where, either naturally or by force, the trees separate, so as to give some accessible avenue. Now, Sophocles tells us the birds sang in these "green going places;" and we take up the expression gratefully, thinking the old Greek perceived and enjoyed, as we do, the sweet fall of the eminently green light through the leaves when they are a little thinner than in the heart of the wood. But we turn to the tragedy of Ajax, and are much shaken in our conclusion about the meaning of the word, when we are told that the body of Ajax is to lie unburied, and be eaten by sea-birds on the "green sand." The formation, geologically distinguished by that title, was certainly not known to Sophocles; and the only conclusion which, it seems to me, we can come to under the circumstances,—assuming Ariel's[75] authority as to the color of pretty sand, and the ancient mariner's (or, rather, his hearer's[76]) as to the color of ugly sand, to be conclusive,—is that Sophocles really did not know green from yellow or brown.
§ 46. Now, without going out of the terrestrial paradise, in which Dante last left us, we shall be able at once to compare with this Greek incertitude the precision of the mediæval eye for color. Some three arrowflights further up into the wood we come to a tall tree, which is at first barren, but, after some little time, visibly opens into flowers, of a color "less than that of roses, but more than that of violets."
It certainly would not be possible, in words, to come nearer to the definition of the exact hue which Dante meant—that of the apple-blossom. Had he employed any simple color-phrase, as a "pale pink," or "violet-pink," or any other such combined expression, he still could not have completely got at the delicacy of the hue; he might perhaps have indicated its kind, but not its tenderness; but by taking the rose-leaf as the type of the delicate red, and then enfeebling this with the violet grey, he gets, as closely as language can carry him, to the complete rendering of the vision, though it is evidently felt by him to be in its perfect beauty ineffable; and rightly so felt, for of all lovely things which grace the spring time in our fair temperate zone, I am not sure but this blossoming of the apple-tree is the fairest. At all events, I find it associated in my mind with four other kinds of color, certainly principal among the gifts of the northern earth, namely:
1st. Bell gentians growing close together, mixed with lilies of the valley, on the Jura pastures.
2nd. Alpine roses with dew upon them, under low rays of morning sunshine, touching the tops of the flowers.
3rd. Bell heather in mass, in full light, at sunset.
4th. White narcissus (red-centred) in mass, on the Vevay pastures, in sunshine, after rain.
And I know not where in the group to place the wreaths of apple-blossoms, in the Vevay orchards, with the far-off blue of the lake of Geneva seen between the flowers.
A Greek, however, would have regarded this blossom simply with the eyes of a Devonshire farmer, as bearing on the probable price of cider, and would have called it red, cerulean, purple, white, hyacinthine, or generally "aglaos," agreeable, as happened to suit his verse.
§ 47. Again: we have seen how fond the Greek was of composing his paradises of rather damp grass; but that in this fondness for grass there was always an undercurrent of consideration for his horses; and the characters in it which pleased him most were its depth and freshness; not its color. Now, if we remember carefully the general expressions, respecting grass, used in modern literature, I think nearly the commonest that occurs to us will be that of "enamelled" turf or sward. This phrase is usually employed by our pseudo-poets, like all their other phrases, without knowing what it means, because it has been used by other writers before them, and because they do not know what else to say of grass. If we were to ask them what enamel was, they could not tell us; and if we asked why grass was like enamel, they could not tell us. The expression has a meaning, however, and one peculiarly characteristic of mediæval and modern temper.
§ 48. The first instance I know of its right use, though very probably it had been so employed before, is in Dante. The righteous spirits of the pre-Christian ages are seen by him, though in the Inferno, yet in a place open, luminous, and high, walking upon the "green enamel."
I am very sure that Dante did not use this phrase as we use it. He knew well what enamel was; and his readers, in order to understand him thoroughly, must remember what it is,—a vitreous paste, dissolved in water, mixed with metallic oxides, to give it the opacity and the color required, spread in a moist state on metal, and afterwards hardened by fire, so as never to change. And Dante means, in using this metaphor of the grass of the Inferno, to mark that it is laid as a tempering and cooling substance over the dark, metallic, gloomy ground; but yet so hardened by the fire, that it is not any more fresh or living grass, but a smooth, silent, lifeless bed of eternal green. And we know how hard Dante's idea of it was; because afterwards, in what is perhaps the most awful passage of the whole Inferno, when the three furies rise at the top of the burning tower, and catching sight of Dante, and not being able to get at him, shriek wildly for the Gorgon to come up too, that they may turn him into stone,—the word stone is not hard enough for them. Stone might crumble away after it was made, or something with life might grow upon it; no, it shall not be stone; they will make enamel of him; nothing can grow out of that; it is dead for ever.[77]