I was getting gas in my GREEN car, Penelope, and I went inside to pay. At the register, the sun was beaming straight into my eyes. The older lady at the register responded to my "Good morning" with a static "You have green eyes, envy much?" I honestly didn't know what to say to that so I just laughed. Of course I envy, but I'm convinced that you can find that in any eyes.
My father has the most beautiful eyes in the history of man. They are a ring of glowing reddish-brown bursting from around the iris and that is surrounded by a band of a very rich green. And they twinkle, they absolutely sparkle. My mother has those wonderful stormy grey-blue eyes that my youngest brother was lucky enough to inherit. He was the only one that got them (and he's the only one that's about to get married. Coincidence? I think not). My older sister has brown eyes, my other younger brother has greenish-blue, and I got the green. Not the bursting brown and green of my father, not the hint of stormy blue of my mother, just the green. These eyes have served me well, being just what I wanted and working most of the time, but mostly people make the comment about 'envy'. Why is green synonymous with envy? My eyes have seen their share of envy, but they have also seen love, sleepiness, wonder, want, sadness, excitement, kindness, disappointment and delight. Mine have seen what theirs have seen.
Of course, I've only ever wanted green eyes. Green is my favorite color. Green speaks to me of the color of the blood flowing through the veins of life itself!!! Green equals life and wonder, not uncontrollable wanting (most of the time {The wanting comes in way-ay-aves}). Need proof that green eyes are about life? Check out this Sugarloaf song from the 70's:
Greeen Eyed Lady, lovely lady
Strolling slowly towards the sun
Green eyed lady ocean lady
Soothing every wave that comes
Green eyed lady, passion's lady
dressed in love she lives for life to be
Green eyed lady feels like I never see
Setting suns and lonely lovers free
Green eyed lady, windswept lady
moves the night the waves the sand
Green eyed lady ocean lady
child of nature, friend of man
Green eyed lady passions lady
dressed in love she lives for life to be
Green eyed lady feels like I never see
Setting sons and lonely lovers free
So here's what I've decided: They (green-less eyed people) must be superimposing their envy onto green eyes. They really want green eyes (at least it's nice to think so). Not to mention that they could be jealous that there is a Coldplay song about green eyes called, "Green Eyes." Observe:
"Honey you are a rock
Upon which I stand
And I come here to talk
I hope you understand
That green eyes, yeah the spotlight, shines upon you
And how could, anybody, deny you
I came here with a load
And it feels so much lighter, now I’ve met you
And honey you should know, that I could never go on without you
Green eyes
Honey you are the sea
Upon which I float
And I came here to talk
I think you should know
That green eyes, you’re the one that I wanted to find
And anyone who, tried to deny you must be out of their mind
Cause I came here with a load
And it feels so much lighter, since I met you
Honey you should know, that I could never go on without you"
Does it sound like the person he's written about is so consumed with envy that that must be their defining trait? No it does not. At all.
AND! The girl in The Decemberists' song, "Grace Cathedral Hill" has green eyes. Observe once more:
"Sweet on a green-eyed girl, all fiery
Irish clip and curl, all brine and piss and vinegar.
I paid twenty-five cents to light a little white candle."
Ok, so maybe she's a little surly, but it doesn't say she's over-ridden with envy. Maybe she's just lively.
Ha ha.
I did some casual google-ing and found these interesting tidbits about green eyes to make me feel better:
Green eyes are the product of low to moderate amounts of melanin and probably represent the interaction of multiple variants within the OCA2 and other genes. Green eyes are most common in Northern and Central Europe. They can also be found in parts of Southern Europe, South Asia, West Asia, and North Africa. In Iceland, 89% of women and 87% of men have either blue or green eye color. A study of Icelandic and Dutch adults found green eyes to be much more prevalent in women than in men. Among European Americans, green eyes are most common among those of Celtic and Germanic ancestry, about 16%.
From Wikipedia, which we all know is infallible. But then, my ancestors are almost entirely from Ireland, England and Wales (more to come on the ancestor front later, I have so much good info now, thanks to technology).
And this from "The Folk Lore of Women" :
{"Green eyes are often mentioned in classic literature, and they found special favour with early French poets, who were extremely fond of speaking of them under the title of yeux vers--a taste which seems to have been generally prevalent on the Continent. The Spaniards considered this colour of the eye an emblem of beauty, and as such there is an amusing allusion to it in "Don Quixote":--"But now I think of it, Sancho, thy description of her beauty was a little absurd in that particular of comparing her eyes to pearls. Sure, such eyes are more like those of a whiting, or a sea-bream, than those of a fair lady; and in my opinion Dulcinea's eyes are rather like two verdant emeralds, veiled in with two celestial arches, which signify her eyebrows. Therefore, Sancho, you must take your pearls from her eyes, and apply them to her teeth, for I verily believe you mistake the one for the other!" And we may quote the subjoined well-known lines in praise of green eyes, which show, like many others of the same kind, in that high esteem they were formerly held:--
"Ay ojuelos verdes,
Ay los mis ojuelos,
Ay hagan los cielos,
Qui de mi te acuerdos."
Then, again, Villa Real, a Portuguese, wrote a treatise for the purpose of setting forth the estimation in which he regarded them; and Dante, it may be remembered, speaks of Beatrice's eyes as emeralds--
"Spare not thy vision, we have stationed thee
Before the emeralds, whence love erewhile
Hath drawn his weapons on thee"--
"emeralds," of course, here meaning the eyes of Beatrice.
In our own country we find no lack of allusions to green eyes, and in the "Two Noble Kinsmen " AEmilia, in her address to Diana, says: "Oh, vouchsafe with that thy rare green eye, which never yet beheld things maculate!" On the other hand, Shakespeare speaks of jealousy as "a green-eyed monster," and we know that the phrase has been frequently used in an uncomplimentary manner. But this is the exception, for what more pleasing, or graceful, instance of their being in repute as an object of beauty can be quoted than that given by Frances Collins, who tells us that her husband in writing to a certain lady always spoke of her eyes as sea-green:--
"So stir the fire and pour the wine,
And let those sea-green eyes divine,
Pour their love-madness into mine."
And at another time he wrote these lines:--
"Cupid plucked his brightest plume,
To paint my mistress in her bloom;
Caught her eyes, the soft sea-green,
At a summer noontide seen."
Longfellow in his "Spanish Student" (act ii. sc. 3) has painted with exquisite effect this phase of beauty in the following passage, where Victorian inquires: "How is that young and green-eyed Gaditana that you both wot of?" To which Don Carlos sympathetically adds, "Ay, soft, emerald eyes!" After a while, Victorian resumes her praises, remarking:--
"You are much to blame for letting her go back.
A pretty girl, and in her tender eyes
Just that soft shade of green we sometimes see
In evening skies."
But perhaps one of the highest tributes of honour to green as the colour of the eye is that given by Drummond of Hawthornden, who could not write too eulogistically of his green-eyed maiden--
"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 her starry synod sought.
Mars and Apollo first did her advise,
To wrap in colour black those comets bright,
That love him so might soberly disguise,
And unperceived wound at every sight.
Chaste Phoebe spake for purest azure dies,
But Jove and Venus, green about the light,
To frame thought best, as bringing most delight,
That to pined hearts hope might for ay arise.
Nature, all said, a paradise of green
There placed, to make all love which have them seen."
And Mr. Swinburne in his "Félise" gives a beautiful picture of the chameleon-like iris--
"O lips that mine have grown into,
Like April's kissing May;
O fervid eyelids, letting through
Those eyes the greenest of things blue,
The bluest of things grey." }"
At least there were a couple of things linked to Pre-Raphaelites in there (Dante, Swinburne).
These poets have given me an ego boost (ha ha). I'll have to coast on that high until I meet some other lady in a check-out line who feels the need to say something about my obvious problem with envy. Thanks for listening to (reading) my rant, even if it was completely pointless. It was fun to look things up about green eyes, you all should look up references to your respective eye colors.
