"GREEN EYES."
(Vol. viii., p. 407.)
In the edition of Longfellow's Poetical Works published by Routledge, 1853, the note quoted by Mr. Temple ends thus:
"Dante speaks of Beatrice's eyes as emeralds (Purgatorio, xxxi. 116.). Lami says, in his Annotazioni, 'Erano i suoi occhi d' un turchino verdiccio, simile a quel del mare.'"
More in favour of "green eyes" is to be found in one of Gifford's notes on his translation of the thirteenth satire of Juvenal. The words in the original are:
"Cærula quis stupuit Germani lumina."—Juv. Sat. XIII. 164.
And Gifford's note is as follows:
"Ver. 223 ... and eyes of sapphire blue?]—The people of the south seem to have regarded, as a phenomenon, those blue eyes, which with us are so common, and, indeed so characteristic of beauty, as to form an indispensable requisite of every Daphne of Grub Street. Tacitus, however, from whom Juvenal perhaps borrowed the expression, adds an epithet to cærulean, which makes the common interpretation doubtful. 'The Germans,' he says (De Mor. Ger. 4.), 'have truces et cærulei oculi, fierce, lively blue eyes.' With us, this colour is always indicative of a soft, voluptuous languor. What, then, if we have hitherto mistaken the sense, and, instead of blue, should have said sea-green? This is not an uncommon colour, especially in the north. I have seen many Norwegian seamen with eyes of this hue, which were invariably quick, keen, and glancing.
"Shakspeare, whom nothing escaped, has put an admirable description of them into the mouth of Juliet's nurse:
'O he's a lovely man! An eagle, madam,
Hath not so green, so quick, so fair an eye,
As Paris hath.'
"Steevens, who had some glimpse of the meaning of this word, refers to an apposite passage in The Two Noble Kinsmen. It is in Æmilia's address to Diana:
' . . . . . . Oh vouchsafe
With that thy rare green eye, which never yet
Beheld things maculate,' &c.
"It is, indeed, not a little singular, that this expression should have occasioned any difficulty to his commentators; since it occurs in most of our old poets; and Drummond of Hawthornden uses it perpetually. One instance of it may be given:
'When Nature now had wonderfully wrought
All Auristella's parts, except her eyes:
To make those twins, two lamps in beauty's skies,
The counsel of the starry synod sought.
Mars and Apollo first did her advise,
To wrap in colours black those comets bright,
That Love him so might soberly disguise,
And, unperceived, wound at every sight!
Chaste Phœebe spake for purest azure dyes;
But Jove and Venus green about the light,
To frame, thought best, as bringing most delight,
That to pined hearts hope might for aye arise.
Nature, all said, a paradise of green
Placed there, to make all love which have them seen.'"
Gifford's Translation of Juvenal and Persius,
3rd edition, 1817.
Gifford's quotation from Romeo and Juliet (errors excepted) is to be found in Act III. Sc. 5.
C. Forbes.