"Chaste Phœbe spake for purest azure dyes,
But Jove and Venus green about the light,
To frame thought best, as bringing most delight,
That to pin'd hearts hope might for aye arise."
Cf. Longfellow, The Spanish Student: "Ay, soft emerald eyes;" and again:—
"in her tender eyes
Just that soft shade of green we sometimes see
In evening skies."
In a note on the former passage, the poet says: "The Spaniards, with good reason, consider this colour of the eyes as beautiful, and celebrate it in song.... Dante speaks of Beatrice's eyes as emeralds (Purgat. xxxi. 116). Lami says in his Annotazioni, 'Erano i suoi occhi d' un turchino verdiccio, simile a quel del mare.'"
221. [Beshrew.] See on ii. 5. 52 above.