Real quick note today on a break from manuscript revisions. Here’s one more green eyed character for our collection of Dante’s Beatrice, Hodgson Burnett’s Little Princess, and Montgomery’s Anne of Green Gables: Thisbe’s late love in A Midsummer Night’s Dream, Act 5, Scene 1, line 330…
Thisbe
Asleep, my love?
What, dead, my dove?
O Pyramus, arise!
Speak, speak. Quite dumb?
Dead, dead? A tomb
Must cover thy sweet eyes.
These My lips,
This cherry nose,
These yellow cowslip cheeks,
Are gone, are gone:
Lovers, make moan:
His eyes were green as leeks.
O Sisters Three,
Come, come to me,
With hands as pale as milk;
Lay them in gore,
Since you have shore
With shears his thread of silk.
Tongue, not a word:
Come, trusty sword;
Come, blade, my breast imbrue:
Stabs herself
And, farewell, friends;
Thus Thisby ends:
Adieu, adieu, adieu.
Dies
(H/T to James Devine!) Please let me know what you make of that reference, of the meaning of green eyes beyond the Dante color symbolism explained in The Deathly Hallows Lectures, and what other characters you know of in literature, film, and real life besides Ms. Rowling who have emerald orbs!
More Potter/Twilight and iconological criticism Monday… Stay tuned.
Figuratively, there’s jealousy, the green-eyed monster.
Following is the Wikipedia entry for “Green Eyes:
“Green Eyes” may refer to:
A human eye color (see Eye color – Green)
“Green Eyes (Aquellos Ojos Verdes)”, a popular song
“Green Eyes”, a song by Erykah Badu from her album Mama’s Gun
“Green Eyes”, a song by Coldplay from their album A Rush of Blood to the Head
“Green Eyes”, a song by Hüsker Dü from their album Flip Your Wig
Relapse To Recovery, second album by These Green Eyes
Green Eyes (1954), a Caldecott Honor winning book by A. Birnbaum
Freaky Green Eyes by Joyce Carol Oates
Lovely Green Eyes by Arnost Lustig
Green Eyes by Lucius Shepard
Green Eyes by Karen Robards
The Girl with the Jade Green Eyes by John Boyd
The Green Eyes Of Bast by Sax Rohmer
The Jane with Green Eyes by Hank Janson
Green Eyes by David Baker
Green Eyes, The Greenest Fields a photography book
Also, here are the lyrics to the Barry Manilow song “Green Eyes,” which sounds like Snape’s perfect love song:
Your green eyes with their soft light
your eyes that promise sweet nights
bring to my soul a longing
of thirst for love’s devine
in dreams I seem to hold you
to find you and enfold you
our lips meet and our hearts too
with a thrill so sublime
those cool and limbit green eyes
a pool where in my love lies
so deep that in my searching
for happiness I feel
that they will ever haunt me
all through my life they’ll taunt me
but will they ever want me
green eyes
make my dream come true
green eyes with their soft lights
and eyes that promise sweet nights
bring to my soul a longing
a thirst for love devine
in dreams I seem to hold you
to find you and enfold you
our lips meet and our hearts too
with a thrill so sublime
those cool and limbit green eyes
a pool where in my love lies
so deep that in my searching
for happiness I feel
that they will ever haunt me
all through my life they’ll taunt me
but will they ever want me
green eyes
make my dream come true
Wow, that’s the first time I’ve ever heard of Snape & Barry Manilow being connected, but the song does kind of fit, doesn’t it?
Unfortunately, I’ll probably have dreams, though, of Snape singing “At the Copa.” 🙂
Well, since you’ve been talking of Twilight….
Edward had green eyes before he was turned into a vampire.
to revgeorge: Sounds like a new idea for Youtube’s Potter Puppet Pals!
I dunno if they’re green, since it’s a world without color, but Jonas and baby Gabriel are described as having “pale” eyes in The Giver. Most likely blue, but no saying that they’re not green. I’ve also heard references in short stories I’ve read to werewolves having green eyes. One other reference, in a Japanese manga called Fruits Basket, there’s a man named Ayame, very effeminate, who turns into a snake and has green eyes.
Mad props for connecting Snape to Barry Manilow!
Has to be “limpid” eyes and “divine.” Hilarious connection, Lily Luna. Can you imagine Snape warbling this alone to his Patronus, in his dark chambers? Poor Severus. And consider that name: Sever Us…
Also, on the green eyes. I’ve read many novels and stories where the lead or a main character has green eyes, so I think just having green eyes isn’t particularly important. The green eyes must factor in with other critical things to make them meaningful.
For example, Jonas in The Giver. I don’t believe it adds anything to the story if they were green, or we would be told they were and their color would be significant.
Wait a minute. Anne doesn’t have green eyes. Bets, over at the Anne of Green Gables and L.M. Montgomery Lexicon, is quoted on the Taxonomy of AGG thread: “Anne is another eleven-year-old orphan who has inherited her dead mother’s green eyes”
I checked the first reference to Anne’s eyes in AoGG: “…her eyes, that looked green in some lights and moods and gray in others.” Without rereading the whole canon in an instant, I recall her eyes consistently being called gray. So I’m not sure Anne’s eyes have import as “green.”
I know this isn’t supposed to be a Snape thread, but I was thinking tonight about what Snape’s boggart would be. In POA he gets up and leaves the staff room, ostensibly because he doesn’t want to watch Lupin’s class, but it just occurred to me that he wouldn’t want to risk the boggart getting near him and revealing something secret. This makes me think Snape’s boggart would be something like dead Lily or Heavenly Lily rejecting him again, or possibly dead Harry. (I was just re-reading the boggart scene in OOTP which made me think of it.)
Green eyes can symbolize being human or mortal. It is not a bad thing, but separate characters from being gods or immortal.
At the risk of being random: Lily-Rose Beatrice is the English pop singer Lily Allen’s full name.
Green Eyed Lady, lovely lady………
…sugarloaf, the long version:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Xc1PHk9FhIk
Ever since Beatrice, those green eyes have it!