All in the eyes of the beholder

 All in the eyes of the beholderI merely lived through the 24 hours of the International Women’s Day this week, absorbed in my own little world and can boast of no accomplishments whatsoever that day or otherwise. But something stirred in my mind and I shamelessly admit that I had rather a good time thinking about it.

Men of letters have written differently about women. Unlike scientists who are precise and want proofs, poets dream and imagine and then indulge in word play. They may compare a woman with fairy, angel or sorceress, based on their personal experience. Yet when it comes to physical beauty, they generally draw parallels from nature. What I deduced after a lot of calculation, was that most comparisons are with features from various branches of natural sciences like:

Botany: flowers trees, plants or their parts

Zoology: birds, animals

Earth sciences like planetary science, meteorology, geology etc.

Caution- nobody dare call me a misogynist and I do not focus on a person’s physical features unless they are absolutely necessary for my narrative. Please also note that since I am talking of beauty there are no violent, gory or comical images to be drawn in your minds. Besides, all this in no way objectifies women because these are similes, not depictions. At no great risk you are free to use them for future reference.

Tabulating it would have robbed us of the opportunity of visualizing, wondering how is it possible or does she fit that description.

Let us start from the hair.

Hair To a poet blonde hair can shimmer like a field of wheat, silky soft and curly golden corn, weed, crown of gold or gold mist of the hills. Shakespeare wrote golden threads played with her breath while to Charles Nodier it looked like gold from the furnace.

Meanwhile, black locks/curls can be like nagin (serpent) or can remind you of kaali ghata (black clouds). Those with silver streaks remind of silver night elbowing the gloom of twilight. (Darrel Figgis)

Face: Does someone’s face bring you the thought of nestling luxury of flowers? (Gerald Massey) or lily hidden in holy dusks (George Sterling)?

We have heard of chaand sa chehra (face like the moon), never mind the spots you see on its surface, Arabian Nights mentions light of the dawn, but Frank Carlos Griffith went further to say ‘setting sun on a summer’s day, when promise of a hot day to-morrow is read in its ruddy hue.’ Romance of Antar says Thy face is like the full moon of heaven, allied to light, but far from my hopes.

Eyes: When it comes to the pair of blinking ‘windows to the soul’ fixed right on our faces, poets’ imagination goes into an overdrive.

Not many comparisons from the plant world, except twin violets by a shady brook (Alice Cary) or dark blue pansies. (Norman Gale). They have thought of eyes of doves when washed by the dews of the morning. (Oliver Goldsmith), mild as a gazelle’s, (Thomas Hood), a hind’s in love-time (Edwin Arnold).

We surely would not want to look into burning eye, yellow and phosphoric like the eye of a crocodile or a lion. (Théphile Gautier)

Try to visualise eyes as summer skies, radiance the sunbeams bring, liquid light, diamond’s blaze or deeply dark as desert skies (Laurence Hope) or glassy streams as Robert Greenes said. Why are they jheel si gehri (deep as the lake) and not like the ocean which is deeper?

Henry W. Longfellow does not like the cliched comparison with stars of any kind. He goes beyond Edmondo de Amicis’ brilliant and humid like the reflection of stars in a well to say,

I dislike an eye that twinkles like a star. Those only are beautiful which, like the planets, have a steady, lambent light—are luminous, but not sparkling.

Will an ophthalmologist clarify what eyes like a butterfly’s gorgeous wings (James Lane Allen) look like?

Some poets have tried to be specific about how the eyes look during a particular mood e.g., cheerful eyes, like heartsease where a dew drop lies. (Edmund Gosse), glazed over like harebells wet with dew (Caroline Bowles), droop like summer flowers (Letitia Elizabeth Landon), vacant eyes, blue as the flowers of the flax plant (Guy de Maupassant).

What picture does your mind draw of Her eyes grew bright and large, Like springs rain-fed that dilate their marge. (Aubrey De Vere) or

mountain water that’s flowing on a rock (William Allingham) or

Languishing eyes like those of a roe looking tenderly at her young (Amriolkais)?

Lips: For centuries smooth, tender or pink like a rose (full blown or buds) has monopolized the description of a woman’s beautiful lips. The few exceptions include pomegranate blossoms (Arlo Bates), red of Christmas holly (Frances Hodgson Burnett) purple of Narciss’ flower (Robert Greene) With lips, like hanging fruit, whose hue
Is ruby ’neath a bloom of blue (T. Gordon Hake), but dropping sweet-smelling myrrh (Old Testament) feels deadly.  

Mercifully, from the animal world lips have only been compared to pink shells or coral because I cannot think of many animals any woman would like her beak to be compared with. They, however, have been equated with wave half-furled (Alfred Austin), curved like an archer’s bow to send the bitter arrows out (Elizabeth Barrett Browning) thread of scarlet sunset (William Butler Yeats), whatever these meant.

Teeth: Wouldn’t a dentist agree that teeth like rows of pearls are shiny, off-white and uneven?  White beads would not only be cheaper but more uniform.

Surahi

Neck: Generally, the comparison is with a swan’s neck. But the extremely popular simile used by Hindi and Urdu poets is surahi. I am not a poet, but can you visualize a woman’s neck looking like an earthen water container? 

Form & curves: A woman’s slim body is compared to a vine which would be clingy and may possibly be disliked by the women of today. Fortunately, there is not much about hands and feet although they can be soft.

But when a poet uses quadruples saying chaal jaise (gait like) hirni (doe) or mast haathi (bull elephant with increased hormones), I have nightmares.

Some poets seem to give you options to choose the simile you may find appropriate

Her hair is like the golden corn…
golden harvest-moon…
a stream with golden sands. (Christina Georgina Rossetti)
 

Thomas Campion takes you on a tour:

There is a garden in her face

Where roses and white lilies grow; …

Wherein all pleasant fruits do flow…

Kakdi

Shair (Urdu poets) have been enamoured by lips which look like mai ke pyaale (cups of wine) or sharaabi aankhein (eyes of a drunk) in Hindi, and in English too, lips have been weighed against scarlet wine or the muscatel (Austin Dobson), taverns of wine (Beaumont and Fletcher). You may safely argue that wine is beautiful. 

So far, so good but the one correlation I did not enjoy is comparing eyes with almonds/melted chocolate/steaming coffee, skin with milk/cream, cheeks like apples/tomatoes, fingers with kakdi (soft cucumber). 

As a woman I advise that comparing the queen of your dreams with a subzi mandi (vegetable market) or grocery list is not very sensible or safe.

Do not say I did not warn you.

 Beauty in the Eyes of  Poets
Hair like serpents, eyes like stars, face like moon, lips like petals, neck like surahi, arms like branches of tree, gait like a doe's
(Sketch by unknown artist)

Stuff for sleepless nights!  

                                                                                                -Anupama S Mani