Cincinnati daily press. [volume] (Cincinnati [Ohio]) 1860-1862, 1860-11-30

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Of tho Poets on Sunshiny Hair.
The poets, ancient and modern, have a
deal to say about golden tresses, yellow |
ditto, and others of Kindred hucs, more or /
less akin. And the commentators have |
been diligent to trace ont their meaning, not |
without some solicitude, at times, lest pure |
and simple red should turn out to be the |
desiderhium. What else could Theocritus |
mean when he made two Of his handsome |
swains purrotriko-with tresses like fre2 |
Mr.. Leigh Hunt, in reference to this svery epi-
thet, Can not believe the fayOrite golden hair |
to Rave been red-for which color, neverthe- |
less, he frankly owns a sort Of tenderness
but he thinks the proximity closer than
moderate taste would approve, and that |
golden went a good deal beyond what it is
sometimes supposed to have been, auburn.
"The word yellow, contTovertible term
for it, viii not do for auburn. Auburn is q
rare and glorious color, and we suspect will
always be admired by us of the North,
where the fair compilations that recon-
mended golden hair are easy to be met with,
as they are difficult in the South" Ovid
and Anacreon are quoted to the purpose-a
couplet from the latter being rendered by
Ben Jonson in single line, "Gold upon a
ground of black" But Mr.. Hunt appeals to
q memorandum in his possession, "worth a
thousand treatises of the learned to show
what Italian connoisseurs at least under
stood by golden hair. This solitary hair
of Vittoria Colonna's cotemporary, the
famous, or infamous, Lucretia Borgia,
whom Ariosto has praised for her vir-
tues, and whom the rest Of the world is so
contented to think wretch" It was Lord
Byronis gift to the author of. Rimini and
was obtained from lock of her hair, pre-
served in the Ambrosian library at Milan.
And its possessor reports Of it, that If ever
hair was golden, this is. ut is not red, it is
- 4 "a & A..
and nothing else and though natural-look-
ing, too, must have had a surprising appear
ance in the mass"
Calm hair meand'ring with peiluoid gold,
is the last line of quatrain which Mr.. Lam
dor composed in honor of this 'bright par
ticular" relic.
Chnucer, in his vision of the Queen of
Love, tells us that 'a
all her here It shone as good as fine,
Dishevel, crisp.
1 In another vision he sees another beauty
| "with here shene as gold '-and again, with
here in tresse = and shining every dele"
! So, too, Venus in another of his poems: "Hsr
plite heeres with golde threde Ybound
! were, untressed as she lay" The snowy
ladye created by Sponsors witch as Flori-
mels double, is carefully provided with the
semblance of chiomo d'oro;
. Instead Of yellow lockes she did deyyse
Yet golden wyre was not so yellow thryse
As Florimelrs fayre heare,-- .-,-
as may readily enough be supposed, without
too wyredrawn an objection to the old lady's
handicraft. When Britomart, again, doffs
her helmet, "her golden lockes that were
unbound still in knot" are said in their
descent to have
About her backe and all her bodIe wound:
Like as the shining sky IN summers night,
Is crested with all lines Of frie light, etc.
Here, too, is another picture in the same
effulgent style;
- Her yellow here,
Like to golden border did appeare,
Framed in goldsmithes forge with cunning hand;
Yet SepnSns could limit net understand ST.
For it did glistsn, like "a, the go gcden, sand
Throws forth upon the rivage round about him mere.
So the virgin bright Alma's "yellow golden
beare was trinity woven, and in tresses
wrought" And in fine, Spenser makes it a
foremost danger in ''beauties lovely bate, u
that thereby man is "wrapt in fetters of q
golden tresse.p We might corroborate gentle
Edmund's preferences by copious testimonie;
from other Elizabethan poets Robert Greene
in particular, abounds with parallel passages
Thus, in his description of Silvestro's
Lady" fantastically enough,
Her hair of golden hue doth dim the beams
That proud Apollo gveth from his coach.
In his, "Francesco's Roundelay,"-
The golden Wiree that checker in the day
Her Herr amber m % ira tTSmmcis did my heart dsmay, &C.
In his "PeDitent Palmer's Ode
Ithonght my mistrssss hal. hairs gsSe yer. gold,
Her amber tresses were the sight
That wrapped me in vain delight
He shows us Dian's nymphs 'bathing thei
golden hair Gu rhymeG and in the case of
cherry-red Phillis calls "Ph9bus's" wire
eompared to her hairs unworthy the prais
| = I, nd a N nd wi
When gods had framed the sweeto Of woman's face
Aud locked mems looks within their golden haiI
{ and sgain brings in peerless pastoral Phil
, lis, "Gold her hair, bright her eyne, like t
! Phmbus in his shine" Shakespeare make
/ "Portia'sn sunny locks hang on her temple
: like golden fleece" and her bridegroom
' talks of 'those crisped, snaky, golden lock
5 such wanton gambols with the wind" an
: do terrible execution the while, saying
g too, of his lady-loves portrait in the leade
casket he opens,
n Here in her hairs
sOden mesh As 70 entrsp tSs hearts o
Faster than gnats in cobwebs.
Y In such web was caught our Edward I'll
1 Fourth--of whose ambitious wife, Ellzabet
= Woodyille, in an historical novel of autborit
e on such points, we read Her hair Of Il
G pale yellow, considered then the perfectio
of beauty, flowed so straight and so shinin
down her sholders, almost to the knees, thl
it seemed like mantle of gold" Edward
own locks, by the way, being "of riC
! golden color that flowed, not in curls, bl
n Straight to his shoulders" In his sixt,
n eighth sonnet, Shakespeare alludes las he all
o does in one of "Basianios" speeches, ju
Q quoted TO the custom of violating the graz
n | to procure tresses so much in request, al
8 adapt them 70 living (but otherwise le
favored) heads; u
d Before tho golden tresses of the dead,
= The right Of sepuloher, were shorn away,
IL To live a second life on a second head,
} Ere beauty's dead fleece made another gay.
a The tresses thus obtained, the snnotato
7 tell US, were dyed areddish or golden colo
ot in compliment to Queen Elizabeth, who
d natural hair was Of that hue, and who he
ss self set the example of wearing artifci
locks.
IfMilton paints our first progenitor Wi
y ''hyaeinthine locks" 10 Eve he gives Il
II chiome d'oro, rich and rare;
r, She, as vail, down to the slender waist,
~ Her uDadOrned golden tresses wore
Dishevelld but IN wanton ringlets waved
r, As the vine curs her tendrils.
~ Milton, we may infer, considered black 4
q best beseeming color for the locks of mod
Id uod Iouron haan ri