In the “Two Noble Kinsmen” (v. 1), Emilia, praying to Diana, says:
“O vouchsafe,
With that thy rare green eye—which never yet
Beheld thing maculate—look on thy virgin.”
The words of Armado have been variously explained as alluding to green eyes—Spanish writers being peculiarly enthusiastic in this praise—to the willow worn by unsuccessful lovers, and to their melancholy.[968] It has also been suggested[969] that, as green is the color most suggestive of freshness and spring-time, it may have been considered the most appropriate lover’s badge. At the same time, however, it is curious that, as green has been regarded as an ominous color, it should be connected with lovers, for, as an old couplet remarks:
“Those dressed in blue
Have lovers true;
In green and white,
Forsaken quite.”[970]
In “Merchant of Venice” (iii. 2), “green-eyed jealousy,” and in “Othello” (iii. 3), its equivalent, “green-eyed monster,” are expressions used by Shakespeare.
Yellow is an epithet often, too, applied to jealousy, by the old writers. In the “Merry Wives of Windsor” (i. 3), Nym says he will possess Ford “with yellowness.” In “Much Ado About Nothing” (ii. 1) Beatrice describes the Count as “civil as an orange, and something of that jealous complexion.” In “Twelfth Night” (ii. 4), Viola tells the Duke how her father’s daughter loved a man, but never told her love:
“She pin’d in thought,
And with a green and yellow melancholy
She sat like patience on a monument.”
Dinner Customs. In days gone by there was but one salt-cellar on the table, which was a large piece of plate, generally much ornamented. The tables being long, the salt was commonly placed about the middle, and served as a kind of boundary to the different quality of the guests invited. Those of distinction were ranked above; the space below being assigned to the dependants, inferior relations of the master of the house, etc.[971] Shakespeare would seem to allude to this custom in the “Winter’s Tale” (i. 2), where Leontes says:
“lower messes,
Perchance, are to this business purblind?”
Upon which passage Steevens adds, “Leontes comprehends inferiority of understanding in the idea of inferiority of rank.” Ben Jonson, speaking of the characteristics of an insolent coxcomb, remarks: “His fashion is not to take knowledge of him that is beneath him in clothes. He never drinks below the salt.”