30 and 31)
of the Greek Philostratus: "Send me back some of the roses on which
you slept. Their natural fragrance will have been increased by that
which you imparted to them." This is a great improvement on the
Persian poets who go into raptures over the fragrant locks of fair
women, not for their inherent sweetness, however, but for the
artificial perfumes used by them, including the disgusting musk! "Is a
caravan laden with musk returning from Khoten?" sings one of these
bards in describing the approach of his mistress.
POETIC DESIRE FOR CONTACT
Besides such direct comparisons of feminine charms to flowers, to sun
and moon and other beautiful objects of nature, amorous hyperbole has
several other ways of expressing itself. The lover longs to be some
article of dress that he might touch the beloved, or a bird that he
might fly to her, or he fancies that all nature is love-sick in
sympathy with him. Romeo's
See, how she leans her cheek upon her hand!
O, that I were a glove upon that hand,
That I might touch that cheek!
is varied in Heine's poem, where the lover wishes he were a stool for
her feet to rest on, a cushion for her to stick pins in, or a
curl-paper that he might whisper his secrets into her ears; and in
Tennyson's dainty lines:
It is the miller's daughter,
And she is grown so dear, so dear,
That I would be the jewel
That trembles at her ear;
For hid in ringlets day and night
I'd touch her neck so warm and white.
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