Chapter Chapter 10 · Of that which is signified b

Chapter 1.X.

Of that which is signified by the colours white and blue.

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 prejudicate 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.