So, I'm having one of those surprisingly frequent moments this year when I wished I had kept last year's AP Psychology book. It came on around the time I hit Act I.II, while Armado and Moth begin arguing about the "four complexions."
Here's the context:
Arm. Who was Samson's love, my dear Moth?
Moth. A woman, master
Arm. Of what complexion?
Moth. Of all the four, or the three, or the two, or one of the four.
Arm. Tell me precisely of what complexion
Moth. Of the sea-water green
Arm. Is that one of the four complexions?
Moth. As I have read, sir; and the best of them too.
The reference at the bottom offers some explanation. It says:
"complexion] used as the double sense of 'colour of the face' and 'humour' or 'temperament' of the body. The humours or temperaments were held in contemporary medicine to be four in number: the phlegmatic, the choleric, the sanguine, and meloncholy, and were all accredited with distinguishing hues. No complexion (in the sense of 'humour') was, of course, of a 'sea-water green' colour. But an ordinary symptom of chlorosis, or the 'green sickness,' from which young growing girls suffered, was a pale, greenish complexion"

"Stories of the medieval period further portray it as representing love[40] and the base, natural desires of man.[41] In Persian and Sudanese poetry, dark-skinned women, called "green" women may be eroticized.[14] The Chinese term for cuckold is "to wear a green hat."
It also mentioned green as representing fertility, rebirth, and inexperience.
That's interesting about the color green. I'll bet that every color at one time or another or in one place or another has represented "love and the base, natural desires of man," haha.
ReplyDelete