Colour Nonsense

[Terrance F. Flaherty]

I've but a common school boys knowledge of artist's palettes
and peacock's tails, but of black and white and blue, I
think I know a thing or two:

The white therefore signifieth joy, solace, and gladness,
and that not at

random, but upon just and very good grounds:  which you may
perceive to be

true, if laying aside all prejudiced affections, you will
but give ear to

what presently I shall expound unto you.



Aristotle saith that, supposing two things contrary in their
kind, as good

and evil, virtue and vice, heat and cold, white and black,
pleasure and

pain, joy and grief,--and so of others,--if you couple them
in such manner

that the contrary of one kind may agree in reason with the
contrary of the

other, it must follow by consequence that the other contrary
must answer to

the remanent opposite to that wherewith it is conferred. 
As, for example,

virtue and vice are contrary in one kind, so are good and
evil.  If one of

the contraries of the first kind be consonant to one of
those of the

second, as virtue and goodness, for it is clear that virtue
is good, so

shall the other two contraries, which are evil and vice,
have the same

connection, for vice is evil.



This logical rule being understood, take these two
contraries, joy and

sadness; then these other two, white and black, for they are
physically

contrary.  If so be, then, that black do signify grief, by
good reason then

should white import joy.  Nor is this signification
instituted by human

imposition, but by the universal consent of the world
received, which

philosophers call Jus Gentium, the Law of Nations, or an
uncontrollable

right of force in all countries whatsoever.  For you know
well enough that

all people, and all languages and nations, except the
ancient Syracusans

and certain Argives, who had cross and thwarting souls, when
they mean

outwardly to give evidence of their sorrow, go in black; and
all mourning

is done with black.  Which general consent is not without
some argument and

reason in nature, the which every man may by himself very
suddenly

comprehend, without the instruction of any--and this we call
the law of

nature.  By virtue of the same natural instinct we know that
by white all

the world hath understood joy, gladness, mirth, pleasure,
and delight.  In

former times the Thracians and Cretans did mark their good,
propitious, and

fortunate days with white stones, and their sad, dismal, and
unfortunate

ones with black.  Is not the night mournful, sad, and
melancholic?  It is

black and dark by the privation of light.  Doth not the
light comfort all

the world?  And it is more white than anything else.  Which
to prove, I

could direct you to the book of Laurentius Valla against
Bartolus; but an

evangelical testimony I hope will content you.  Matth. 17 it
is said that,

at the transfiguration of our Lord, Vestimenta ejus facta
sunt alba sicut

lux, his apparel was made white like the light.  By which
lightsome

whiteness he gave his three apostles to understand the idea
and figure of

the eternal joys; for by the light are all men comforted,
according to the

word of the old woman, who, although she had never a tooth
in her head, was

wont to say, Bona lux.  And Tobit, chap.5, after he had lost
his sight,

when Raphael saluted him, answered, What joy can I have,
that do not see

the light of Heaven?  In that colour did the angels testify
the joy of the

whole world at the resurrection of our Saviour, John 20, and
at his

ascension, Acts 1.  With the like colour of vesture did St.
John the

Evangelist, Apoc. 4.7, see the faithful clothed in the
heavenly and blessed

Jerusalem.



Read the ancient, both Greek and Latin histories, and you
shall find that

the town of Alba (the first pattern of Rome) was founded and
so named by

reason of a white sow that was seen there.  You shall
likewise find in

those stories, that when any man, after he had vanquished
his enemies, was

by decree of the senate to enter into Rome triumphantly, he
usually rode in

a chariot drawn by white horses:  which in the ovation
triumph was also the

custom; for by no sign or colour would they so significantly
express the

joy of their coming as by the white.  You shall there also
find, how

Pericles, the general of the Athenians, would needs have
that part of his

army unto whose lot befell the white beans, to spend the
whole day in

mirth, pleasure, and ease, whilst the rest were a-fighting. 
A thousand

other examples and places could I allege to this purpose,
but that it is

not here where I should do it.



By understanding hereof, you may resolve one problem, which
Alexander

Aphrodiseus hath accounted unanswerable:  why the lion, who
with his only

cry and roaring affrights all beasts, dreads and feareth
only a white cock?

For, as Proclus saith, Libro de Sacrificio et Magia, it is
because the

presence of the virtue of the sun, which is the organ and
promptuary of all

terrestrial and sidereal light, doth more symbolize and
agree with a white

cock, as well in regard of that colour, as of his property
and specifical

quality, than with a lion.  He saith, furthermore, that
devils have been

often seen in the shape of lions, which at the sight of a
white cock have

presently vanished.  This is the cause why Galli or Gallices
(so are the

Frenchmen called, because they are naturally white as milk,
which the

Greeks call Gala,) do willingly wear in their caps white
feathers, for by

nature they are of a candid disposition, merry, kind,
gracious, and well-

beloved, and for their cognizance and arms have the whitest
flower of any,

the Flower de luce or Lily.



If you demand how, by white, nature would have us understand
joy and

gladness, I answer, that the analogy and uniformity is
thus.  For, as the

white doth outwardly disperse and scatter the rays of the
sight, whereby

the optic spirits are manifestly dissolved, according to the
opinion of

Aristotle in his problems and perspective treatises; as you
may likewise

perceive by experience, when you pass over mountains covered
with snow, how

you will complain that you cannot see well; as Xenophon
writes to have

happened to his men, and as Galen very largely declareth,
lib. 10, de usu

partium:  just so the heart with excessive joy is inwardly
dilated, and

suffereth a manifest resolution of the vital spirits, which
may go so far

on that it may thereby be deprived of its nourishment, and
by consequence

of life itself, by this perichary or extremity of gladness,
as Galen saith,

lib. 12, method, lib. 5, de locis affectis, and lib. 2, de
symptomatum

causis.  And as it hath come to pass in former times,
witness Marcus

Tullius, lib. 1, Quaest. Tuscul., Verrius, Aristotle, Titus
Livius, in his

relation of the battle of Cannae, Plinius, lib. 7, cap. 32
and 34, A.

Gellius, lib. 3, c. 15, and many other writers,--to Diagoras
the Rhodian,

Chilon, Sophocles, Dionysius the tyrant of Sicily,
Philippides, Philemon,

Polycrates, Philistion, M. Juventi, and others who died with
joy.  And as

Avicen speaketh, in 2 canon et lib. de virib. cordis, of the
saffron, that

it doth so rejoice the heart that, if you take of it
excessively, it will

by a superfluous resolution and dilation deprive it
altogether of life. 

Here peruse Alex. Aphrodiseus, lib. 1, Probl., cap. 19, and
that for a

cause.  But what?  It seems I am entered further into this
point than I

intended at the first.  Here, therefore, will I strike sail,
referring the

rest to that book of mine which handleth this matter to the
full. 

Meanwhile, in a word I will tell you, that blue doth
certainly signify

heaven and heavenly things, by the same very tokens and
symbols that white

signifieth joy and pleasure.

F.R.