Origin of sea-green
Chas Steven
"sea-green incorruptible"?
I am aware that it was supposedly first used to describe Robespiere.
What I want to know is, what is/was "sea-green", and why is it
"incorruptible"?
Yours hopefully
Chas Steven
Donna Richoux
> Is anyone able to throw any light on the origin of the phrase
> "sea-green incorruptible"?
>
> I am aware that it was supposedly first used to describe Robespiere.
> What I want to know is, what is/was "sea-green", and why is it
> "incorruptible"?
Well, a few minutes' searching with google.com (what lovely concrete
search words you have, but you had better put another R into
Robespierre) shows that the nickname appears in a quote from Carlyle,
and apparently nobody agrees on why he called Robespierre "the sea-green
incorruptible." I stopped after five explanations of "sea-green":
- his favorite coat
- his sallow complexion
- he was as incorruptible as the sea was green
- he was jealous of Danton, and Shakespeare had used green sea-water as
a metaphor for jealousy
- his pale eyes
I'm sure you could turn up more. So there couldn't have been any
well-known reason, such as "sea-green was the symbolic color of
Robespierre's supporters." No, because then at least *two* of these
commentators would have agreed.
But I take "incorruptible" to be a literal description of Robespierre's
reputation.
It's not exactly clear whether Carlyle invented the idea or recorded it
from elsewhere.
--
Best wishes -- Donna Richoux
J. W. Love
Robespierre "the sea-green incorruptible.">>
The OED quotes Carlyle as having written, "O seagreen Incorruptible."
Zeberdee
news:1faw04u.1830o2g1fzhwzoN%tr...@euronet.nl...
> Chas Steven <cha...@yahoo.co.uk> wrote:
>
> > Is anyone able to throw any light on the origin of the phrase
> > "sea-green incorruptible"?
> >
> > I am aware that it was supposedly first used to describe Robespiere.
> > What I want to know is, what is/was "sea-green", and why is it
> > "incorruptible"?
>
> Well, a few minutes' searching with google.com (what lovely concrete
> search words you have, but you had better put another R into
> Robespierre) shows that the nickname appears in a quote from Carlyle,
> and apparently nobody agrees on why he called Robespierre "the sea-green
> incorruptible." I stopped after five explanations of "sea-green":
>
> - his favorite coat
> - his sallow complexion
> - he was as incorruptible as the sea was green
> - he was jealous of Danton, and Shakespeare had used green sea-water as
> a metaphor for jealousy
> - his pale eyes
>
The best thing to do would be to read
The French Revolution
A History
by Thomas Carlyle
But now if Mirabeau is the greatest, who of these Six Hundred may be the
meanest? Shall we say, that anxious, slight, ineffectual-looking man,
under thirty, in spectacles; his eyes (were the glasses off) troubled,
careful; with upturned face, snuffing dimly the uncertain future-time;
complexion of a multiplex atrabiliar colour, the final shade of which may
be the pale sea-green. (See De Stael, Considerations (ii. 142); Barbaroux,
Memoires, &c.) That greenish-coloured (verdatre) individual is an Advocate
of Arras; his name is Maximilien Robespierre.
ftp://ftp.mirror.ac.uk/sites/metalab.unc.edu/pub/docs/books/gutenberg/etext9
8/frrev10.txt
I'm just off to practice being atrabiliar.
--
The best lack all conviction,
while the worst Are full of passionate intensity.
-- W.B. Yeats
Donna Richoux
Great stuff! Atralibious, too. Black bile. Melancholy. Yuck.
On trying to look into it further, I now wonder if Carlyle goofed. The
word "verdātre" did mean a green, but by the 1835 French dictionary
that is on-line, it also meant "of two sorts." Maybe De Stael and
Barbaroux (originals not yet located) were just saying something about
Robespierre's ambiguity, or double-dealing nature, or divided loyalty,
or something dual -- and Carlyle took it and ran with it.
Barbaroux's memoires should be at this URL, but I get a exe file I can't
use on my Mac. Could someone search for "verdatre"? (With or without
circumflex, depending on what works.):
Mémoires inédits de Pétion et mémoires de Buzot & de
Barbaroux : accompagnés de notes inédites de Buzot et de
nombreux documents inédits sur Barbaroux, Buzot, Brissot,
etc. / précédés d'une introd. par C. A. Dauban
http://gallica.bnf.fr/scripts/ConsultationTout.exe?E=0&O=N046816
I hope Isabelle is with us on this thread.
--
Best -- Donna Richoux
N.Mitchum
----
> Is anyone able to throw any light on the origin of the phrase
> "sea-green incorruptible"?
>
> I am aware that it was supposedly first used to describe Robespiere.
> What I want to know is, what is/was "sea-green", and why is it
> "incorruptible"?
Others have made a start on an explanation, so you know who it
referred to and who first used the phrase.
"Incorruptible" is not a proper adjective here; it's one of the
sobriquets by which Robespierre was known. Calling him
"sea-green" may be a reference to his clothing. Robespierre was a
bit of a fop; perhaps he favored green and was routinely depicted
in clothes of that color.
----NM
Laura E. Czeschick
"Donna Richoux" <tr...@euronet.nl> schrieb im Newsbeitrag
news:1fawlp5.1ofci4w1q4i68N%tr...@euronet.nl...
> Zeberdee <deeplya...@yahoo.com> wrote:
>
> > "Donna Richoux" <tr...@euronet.nl> wrote in message
> > news:1faw04u.1830o2g1fzhwzoN%tr...@euronet.nl...
> > > Chas Steven <cha...@yahoo.co.uk> wrote:
> > >
> > > > Is anyone able to throw any light on the origin of the phrase
> > > > "sea-green incorruptible"?
> > > >
> > > > I am aware that it was supposedly first used to describe Robespiere.
> > > > What I want to know is, what is/was "sea-green", and why is it
> > > > "incorruptible"?
> > >
>
>
> word "verdātre" did mean a green, but by the 1835 French dictionary
> that is on-line, it also meant "of two sorts." Maybe De Stael and
> Barbaroux (originals not yet located) were just saying something about
> Robespierre's ambiguity, or double-dealing nature, or divided loyalty,
> or something dual -- and Carlyle took it and ran with it.
Hi Donna,
this is just a VERY wild guess, and if you follow the track, you might lose
your time, nevertheless there's a vague possibility that this MIGHT produce
something : to follow the "see-green" back to Greek glaukos or Latin
glaucus: indicating a greyish green, a greyish blue or even a greenish blue
(or blueish green), anyway, the color of the sea, a rare color of eyes -
besides, I seem to remember that there was a sea god named Glaukos (of minor
importance) in Homer, Odyssey - and as Glaukos was a human male name, too,
there are some stage plays (known in France, too) with a hero of that name -
please don't ask me for details as to whether or not there was some special
Glaukos with special features applying to Robespierre as well, I simply
don't remember, and I don't even know if this trace is worth while looking
up, only I cannot get it out of my mind. So please don't kill me if I should
have mislead you.
Kind regards
Laura
Laura F Spira
[..]
>
> Barbaroux's memoires should be at this URL, but I get a exe file I can't
> use on my Mac. Could someone search for "verdatre"? (With or without
> circumflex, depending on what works.):
>
> Mémoires inédits de Pétion et mémoires de Buzot & de
> Barbaroux : accompagnés de notes inédites de Buzot et de
> nombreux documents inédits sur Barbaroux, Buzot, Brissot,
> etc. / précédés d'une introd. par C. A. Dauban
> http://gallica.bnf.fr/scripts/ConsultationTout.exe?E=0&O=N046816
>
> I hope Isabelle is with us on this thread.
>
>
I've had a go, Donna, but can only access bits of pdf files, not the
full documents for some reason. There is a charming picture illustrating
the "Aide" button, though.
--
Laura
(emulate St. George for email)
J. J. Lodder
> On trying to look into it further, I now wonder if Carlyle goofed. The
> word "verdātre" did mean a green, but by the 1835 French dictionary
> that is on-line, it also meant "of two sorts." Maybe De Stael and
> Barbaroux (originals not yet located) were just saying something about
> Robespierre's ambiguity, or double-dealing nature, or divided loyalty,
> or something dual -- and Carlyle took it and ran with it.
snip
> I hope Isabelle is with us on this thread.
My old Dictionaire National me dit:
Verdatre: adj. (rad. vert). Qui tire sur le vert.
Couleur verdatre. Eau verdatre. La femmelle du rossignol pond
ordinairement cinq oeufs d'un brun verdatre. (Buff.)
So it just means greenish.
Sea-green is a poetic liberty,
or a mistranslation.
Jan
Isabelle Cecchini
Donna Richoux <tr...@euronet.nl> a écrit dans le message :
1fawlp5.1ofci4w1q4i68N%tr...@euronet.nl...
[... snip lots of excellent research by all the learned contributors]
> On trying to look into it further, I now wonder if Carlyle goofed. The
> word "verdātre" did mean a green, but by the 1835 French dictionary
> that is on-line, it also meant "of two sorts."[...]
Ah! I'm afraid you have been misled by the peculiar style used by our
venerable academicians: what the entry says at the beginning is
VERDĀTRE. adj. des deux genres
which means an adjective with the same form for the masculine and the
feminine. (genre=grammatical gender)
Isabelle Cecchini
Donna Richoux
Ah, that's precisely what I needed you for. Thanks for setting me
straight. So it's back to green and greenish.
Do you think of a particular shade when you hear "verdatre," is it a
specific color name like scarlet or crimson? Do you know the shade that
is meant by sea-green in English? We could probably find it on a color
chart.
Isabelle Cecchini
[...]
>
> Do you think of a particular shade when you hear "verdatre," is it a
> specific color name like scarlet or crimson? Do you know the shade
> that is meant by sea-green in English? We could probably find it on a
color
> chart.
>
"Verdâtre" is not specific; it is translated as "greenish", although I
think there might be a difference in connotation: the -âtre suffix is
usually pejorative and implies the idea of a diminished and dirty
colour. I am not sure the same applies to the -ish suffix, ot at least
not as regards colours.
I have found the "sea-green" colour at
http://www.showbiz.com/colors.htm, and I think that matches the
equivalent French "vert de mer", which is a precise word, used by
painters and dyers. It has no pejorative connotations, as have
"verdâtre" or "glauque".
As for the link between Robespierre and some sort of green colour, of
whatever hue, it seems to pop up here and there in various physical
descriptions found on the web: for instance on the site of the Musée
Carnavalet: http://makeashorterlink.com/?M1FE21AB
Green was a fashionable colour at the time of the Revolution. It is
still the traditional colour of our French academicians, approved by
Bonaparte; see for instance their homepage
http://www.institut-de-france.fr/index.html; does that look like
"sea-green" to you?
Isabelle Cecchini
Donna Richoux
> Donna Richoux <tr...@euronet.nl> a écrit dans le message :
> 1faymys.29g8621eaocvkN%tr...@euronet.nl...
> [...]
> >
> > Do you think of a particular shade when you hear "verdatre," is it a
> > specific color name like scarlet or crimson? Do you know the shade
> > that is meant by sea-green in English? We could probably find it on a
> color
> > chart.
> >
> I think you've hit on the difference between "verdâtre" and "sea-green".
> "Verdâtre" is not specific; it is translated as "greenish", although I
> think there might be a difference in connotation: the -âtre suffix is
> usually pejorative and implies the idea of a diminished and dirty
> colour. I am not sure the same applies to the -ish suffix, ot at least
> not as regards colours.
>
> I have found the "sea-green" colour at
> http://www.showbiz.com/colors.htm, and I think that matches the
> equivalent French "vert de mer", which is a precise word, used by
> painters and dyers. It has no pejorative connotations, as have
> "verdâtre" or "glauque".
Ah, that's the word Laura Czeschick suggested. I did find Glaukos as a
sea-god and also a Trojan warrior, but not much more than that. Oh, and
it is Greek for various things like colorless, bluish green, greenish
gray, etc.
>
> As for the link between Robespierre and some sort of green colour, of
> whatever hue, it seems to pop up here and there in various physical
> descriptions found on the web: for instance on the site of the Musée
> Carnavalet: http://makeashorterlink.com/?M1FE21AB
>
> Green was a fashionable colour at the time of the Revolution. It is
> still the traditional colour of our French academicians, approved by
> Bonaparte; see for instance their homepage
> http://www.institut-de-france.fr/index.html; does that look like
> "sea-green" to you?
Well, no, actually it doesn't. That chart at the first URL lists an
awfully dark color as being "sea-green," in my opinion. That looks like
one of those charts of the HTML colors, and we found last year when we
looked at name colors that a number of the names simply didn't match our
common experience.
Notice their "sea green" is darker than "dark sea green," which doesn't
make sense. The one labeled DarkSeaGreen is closer to my idea of "sea
green."
Now I see, way, way down the list, some *more* -- "Dark Sea Green"
numbered 1-4, "Sea Green" 1-4, etc. These shades are all over the map,
light to dark. Sea Green 2, I guess, is my idea of Sea Green.
I learned the name from the Crayola Crayons set of 64 colors of my
youth. Their company website gives samples of all their colors, past and
present. Here are all the greens, and you'll see that their "sea green"
is quite mild, like mint green:
http://www.crayola.com/colorcensus/history/this_hue.cfm?hue=4
Now, I don't know if their idea of "sea green" matched anybody else's,
especially from two hundred years before. But I do know that the top one
you found surprised me, so I really don't think that it's common.
By the way, we also established that different software and hardware can
give different results, so the colors you are looking at may not be
identical to the ones I'm looking at. Probably pretty close, though.
In the Robespierre thing, the only step I can think of that would
explain anything would be to locate the actual contemporary phrases
linked to him, whether they used vert, verdatre, glauque, or whatever.
But I reached dead-ends on that, and it's not likely I'd discover
anything startlingly new, anyway.
Laura E. Czeschick
> > "verdātre" or "glauque".
>
> Ah, that's the word Laura Czeschick suggested. I did find Glaukos as a
> sea-god and also a Trojan warrior, but not much more than that. Oh, and
> it is Greek for various things like colorless, bluish green, greenish
> gray, etc.
There are different heros called Glaukos (not too nice guys, obviously)
mentioned in Ranke-Graves' Greek Mythology. Trying to find some more
information about the possible hero Glaukos I seem to remember in a stage
play I failed, but found
http://www.arts.ed.ac.uk/classics/colours/symbolism.htm instead where there
is an abstract about antique colour perception, one paper dedicated to the
colour glaukos especially.
Kind regards,
Laura
J. J. Lodder
> Donna Richoux <tr...@euronet.nl> a écrit dans le message :
> 1faymys.29g8621eaocvkN%tr...@euronet.nl...
> [...]
> >
> > Do you think of a particular shade when you hear "verdatre," is it a
> > specific color name like scarlet or crimson? Do you know the shade
> > that is meant by sea-green in English? We could probably find it on a
> color
> > chart.
> >
> I think you've hit on the difference between "verdātre" and "sea-green".
> "Verdātre" is not specific; it is translated as "greenish", although I
> think there might be a difference in connotation: the -ātre suffix is
> usually pejorative and implies the idea of a diminished and dirty
> colour. I am not sure the same applies to the -ish suffix, ot at least
> not as regards colours.
Second thought: it may have been a wordplay on 'vertu', originally.
After all, 'la dictature de la vertu' was R.'s political program,
Jan
J. J. Lodder
> Now I see, way, way down the list, some *more* -- "Dark Sea Green"
> numbered 1-4, "Sea Green" 1-4, etc. These shades are all over the map,
> light to dark. Sea Green 2, I guess, is my idea of Sea Green.
>
> I learned the name from the Crayola Crayons set of 64 colors of my
> youth. Their company website gives samples of all their colors, past and
> present. Here are all the greens, and you'll see that their "sea green"
> is quite mild, like mint green:
>
> http://www.crayola.com/colorcensus/history/this_hue.cfm?hue=4
It was the wine coloured sea, originally,
which presents something of a problem to translator of the Odyssee.
Rieu makes it 'the wine-dark sea', which is a nice way out.
Joyce must parody Homer in his Ulysses of course,
making it the snot-green sea.
Jan
Bob Stahl
>It was the wine coloured sea, originally,
>which presents something of a problem to translator
>of the Odyssee. Rieu makes it 'the wine-dark sea',
>which is a nice way out.
>Joyce must parody Homer in his Ulysses of course,
>making it the snot-green sea.
Stephen suffered him to pull out and hold up on show by its
corner a dirty crumpled handkerchief. Buck Mulligan wiped
the razorblade neatly. Then, gazing over the handkerchief,
he said:
--The bard's noserag! A new art colour for our Irish poets:
snotgreen. You can almost taste it, can't you?
He mounted to the parapet again and gazed out over Dublin
bay, his fair oakpale hair stirring slightly.
--God! he said quietly. Isn't the sea what Algy calls it:
a great sweet mother? The snotgreen sea. The
scrotumtightening sea. EPI OINOPA PONTON. Ah, Dedalus, the
Greeks! I must teach you. You must read them in the
original. THALATTA! THALATTA! She is our great sweet mother.
Come and look.
....
By the sandwichbell in screening shadow Lydia, her bronze
and rose, a lady's grace, gave and withheld: as in cool
glaucous EAU DE NIL Mina to tankards two her pinnacles of
gold.
- Project Gutenberg etext of Ulysses
The name Glaucus evokes a picture of the dark greenish-blue
which the sea assumes when the winds begin to rise. ...
He would appear to sailors, with his thin body covered with
seaweed and seashells, and predict sinister occurrences. ...
He was a lugubrious divinity and even his love affairs were
unhappy.
- Larouse Encyclopedia of Mythology, 1959
Glaucophane, and glaucophane schist (blueschist):
http://geology.csupomona.edu/drjessey/class/GSC425/Ig-Met25.html
photos:
http://images.google.com/images?q=Glaucophane&imgsafe=on
The Google image database for "glaucus" returns images of
the sea god; Papilio glaucus, the tiger swallowtail
(named after the striking sea-green color of its caterpillar
form); the species Glaucus, a pelagic nudibranch (sea slug);
Chiton glaucus (a molusk); among others.
http://images.google.com/images?hl=en&safe=images&q=glaucus
--
Bob Stahl
Donna Richoux
> The name Glaucus evokes a picture of the dark greenish-blue
> which the sea assumes when the winds begin to rise. ...
> He would appear to sailors, with his thin body covered with
> seaweed and seashells, and predict sinister occurrences. ...
> He was a lugubrious divinity and even his love affairs were
> unhappy.
> - Larouse Encyclopedia of Mythology, 1959
>
> Glaucophane, and glaucophane schist (blueschist):
> http://geology.csupomona.edu/drjessey/class/GSC425/Ig-Met25.html
> photos:
> http://images.google.com/images?q=Glaucophane&imgsafe=on
>
> The Google image database for "glaucus" returns images of
> the sea god; Papilio glaucus, the tiger swallowtail
> (named after the striking sea-green color of its caterpillar
> form); the species Glaucus, a pelagic nudibranch (sea slug);
> Chiton glaucus (a molusk); among others.
> http://images.google.com/images?hl=en&safe=images&q=glaucus
Thanks for all that, Bob. Now that you mention it, I remember very
pretty sea-green caterpillars, probably swallowtails. There's a picture
at:
http://www.npwrc.usgs.gov/resource/2000/cateast/thumbs/papiglau.jpg
And even more, it reminded me of the lovely sea-green chrysalis of the
monarch butterfly:
http://www.sci.mus.mn.us/sln/monarchs/we/mailimages/chrysalis.jpg
Isabelle, *that's* the color I would mean by sea-green.
I remember when I was about four, and we lived in Hayward CA, standing
in an orchard. One of my brothers struck a tree and about a jillion
monarch butterflies took wing.
Isabelle Cecchini
[...]
>
> In the Robespierre thing, the only step I can think of that would
> explain anything would be to locate the actual contemporary phrases
> linked to him, whether they used vert, verdatre, glauque, or whatever.
> But I reached dead-ends on that, and it's not likely I'd discover
> anything startlingly new, anyway.
>
The only physical descriptions I have been able to find mention his
eyes, "gris-bleus" = grey-blue, or "bleu-vert", or "verts" (people seem
to have difficulty pinpointing the exact hue), his spectacles, which
were green-coloured, and his coat, green-striped. His complexion was
"pāle".
I could not find any mention of "glauque" relating to Robespierre. As
for "verdātre", the only reference popping up in Google is the Carlyle
quotation already dug up by yourself and by Zeberdee.
The problem with Barbaroux and Madame de Staėl is that the texts
mentioned are available at the Gallica website only as pictures. So the
only way to access them is to load them in TIFF or PDF format, and, as
they were prolix writers, the process would take an awfully long time.
Isabelle Cecchini
Isabelle Cecchini
[...]
>
> And even more, it reminded me of the lovely sea-green chrysalis of the
> monarch butterfly:
>
> http://www.sci.mus.mn.us/sln/monarchs/we/mailimages/chrysalis.jpg
>
> Isabelle, *that's* the color I would mean by sea-green.
Lovely colour indeed! Thank you!
And yes, I guess it would be "vert de mer" for me.
Isabelle Cecchini
Isabelle Cecchini
Isabelle Cecchini <isabelle...@wanadoo.fr> a écrit dans le message
: aa44b4$7q2ls$1...@ID-68874.news.dfncis.de...
[...]
> The only physical descriptions I have been able to find mention his
> eyes, "gris-bleus" = grey-blue,
Isabelle Cecchini is incredibly stupid, ignorant, not to say downright
illiterate.
That should be "gris-bleu", not "gris-bleus", because, as a charitable
soul has been kind enough to point out privately, compound adjectives
are invariable in French.
And what's more, that should have been "gris-vert" anyway. My reference
was http://mapage.noos.fr/mlopez/robespierre_chrono.htm
And he says "gris-vert", and he isn't daft, whereas I am.
Isabelle Cecchini