The Green

The Green
By R. D. Flavin

The Chicago River dyed green.

I bind to myself today
The strong virtue of an invocation of the Trinity,
I believe the Trinity in the Unity
The Creator of the Universe.

From "St. Patrick's Breast-Plate", first and last stanzas. [Note: I’m reminded of the trinity aspects of the song, “I Me Mine,” considered by some to be the last Beatles’ demo-song (though without Lennon, who was absent from the recording – purists regard "I Want You (She's So Heavy)” as the absolute last official Beatles’ effort, and, of course, everyone has a personal and backseat opinion and mine has always included 1973's Ringo’s third album and the Lennon and McCartney fun with Harry Nielson. ...Can’t say more, because I just don’t know. What I do ‘feel’, however, is that George was my fav-Beatle and his subsequent Hindu (read: Hare Krishna sect/cult) motivations to consider all as personal illusion, combined with the irony of having Lennon AWOL, followed by his choice of titling his autobiography, I Me Mine, combines to suggest a trinity with something missing. Perhaps, ...someone else.]

     It’s Saint Patrick’s Day!   Erin go bra-less, yet again... Actually, it's the Roman Catholic Feast Day of St. Patrick (Ir. Naomh Pádraig, "Holy Patrick," > O.Ir. Patraicc > L. Patricius, "a patrician"). The so-called “Apostle of Ireland” has never been canonized a saint by a pope, rather the honorific “Saint” was applied on a local or regional level for the first several centuries of the Church. However, St. Patrick’s beloved contributions to the Christian faith has allowed for a peculiar place in today’s official Church acknowledgments – his feast day is observed on March 17th, he’s listed as one of the saints, still he’s not yet been beatified, usually the first step toward official sainthood. Saint Patrick’s Day has become a popular celebration of Irish culture and many, many non-Irish and non-Christian folk wear a bit of green on March 17th. The Green has always meant something special to me, for various reasons, though for the last couple of decades I’ve chosen to wear black as a personal protest. I miss the green, but I’m wearing black today.

     I write this from Boston, as Irish as my hometown of Chicago, and as much as it would be a sensual comparison of tradition, sacrifice, corruption and segregation, bias and agenda (think blues and jazz), I shouldn’t pursue such. Both cities have always been immigrant favored over the settled social class and as I’ve struggled (sometimes succeeding) in Beantown and the Windy City, I suppress picking one over the other.   As I’ve had bad feet since my youth and have always been sensitive to appropriate foot-wear (“sneakers” in 1981's Army basic training rather than the previous combat boots was ...a godsend, though even “tennis-shoes” couldn’t help my feet and legs at the time), seasonal choices of what color of socks to wear are now complicated by the further association as to whether or not they should be Red Sox or White Sox. Uh, I’m wearing Black Sox right now... Let’s get back to ‘green’.

An artistic representation of a shamrock or trifolium dubium (var. lesser trefoil).

     The Irish wearing of the green is typically depicted as an adornment of a common three leafed green glover, though those that pursue such are fond of depicting a green clover with four leafs and consider it a symbol of good luck. It’s said that St. Patrick used the clover to teach the Christian concept of the Trinity (the theologically hyper-logical and over the top fantastic conjoinment of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit). It’s also said that he drove the snakes from Ireland and ended the practice of Druidism. He likely did some charitable works at certain times, though I seem to remember that there were no snakes in Ireland before Patrick arrived and that Druidism maintained a sizeable following for at least a few centuries afterwards. Colors can be confusing at times and even the Irish argue about it.

“The national dictionaries of Spain, France, Italy, and Portugal all confirm the fact that the color green has a special and important connotative value – amorous desire – in Latin countries that does not exist in today’s English-speaking world, though at one time it was clearly present in English literature. Because any marked difference in cultural symbols merits investigation, the present study attempts an explanation of symbolic green as a cultural phenomenon by tracing its continuity in Spanish literary tradition. No claim is made to completeness, but instead the focus is upon the more important and more interesting examples which best show variety, evolution, and continuity.

As folklorists, anthropologists, and historians will verify, the origins of symbolic green may be as old as the human race itself and probably arose spontaneously in independent parts of the globe. While many colors readily lend themselves to symbolic notions, green has a special meaning because of its links to the basis of life. It is the first and the principal color observed in the annual renewal of plant life.” Chamberlin, Vernon A. 1968. “Symbolic Green: A Time-Honored Characterizing Device in Spanish Literature.” Hispania. 51, 1: 29-37. Quote from p. 29.

     Entry from Oxford English Dictionary Online, © 2008 (3rd edition in progress; second edition, 1989, unchanged):

green, a. and n. .... [OE. gréne = OFris. grêne, OS. grôni (MDu. grone, Du. groen), OHG. gruoni, kruoni (MHG. grüene, G. grün), ON. grænn (Da. grøn Sw. grön): – OTeut. *grônjo-, f. OTeut. root *grô-, whence GROW v. Cf. GRASS.]   A. adj. I. With reference to colour. ....   [A. 1] d. The particular shade is expressed by words prefixed, as light, dark green; almond-, apple-, bottle-, bronze-, emerald-, lettuce-, olive-green, etc.; also GRASS-GREEN, SEA-GREEN. See also B. 1648-60 HEXHAM Dutch Dict., Appel-groen, Apple-greene. 1727-46 THOMSON Summer 11 The dark-green grass. 1868 Rep. U.S. Commissioner Agric. (1869) 79 A most beautiful metallic golden-green colour. 1887 Lady 20 Jan. 38/3 Pink satin bags, tied with bow and ends of bronze-green satin ribbon. 1899 Daily News 2 Sept. 7/2 A lining of lettuce-green batiste. Ibid. 16 Sept. 7/2 A beautiful dress is in almond-green cloth. [A. 1] e. Forming compound adjs. with the names of other colours, as green-and-gold. 831 J. H. NEWMAN Lett. (1891) I. 242 A beetle I picked up at Torquay was as green and gold as the stone it lay upon. 1882 H. DE WINDT Equator 100 The Brookeana, a beautifully-marked green-and-black butterfly.

     For 'gold' and its enchanting eytomolgy, I'll defer to the efforts of a blogger who seems to have done an okay job at background and typing (corrections are always welcomed):

Gold is the same word in Old English, gold, and is easily recognizable in English's brothers and sisters in the Germanic language family: Old Frisian gold, German Gold, Middle Dutch gout, Old Norse gull, Gothic gulþ. The reconstructed Proto-Indo-European root is *ghel-, a color-word that seems to have been used both for "yellow" and "green." Among the "yellow" words are modern English yellow (Old English geolu, geolwe, but the color name most associated with the mineral gold in Old English poetry was "red"); German gelb; Latin helvus "yellowish, bay," Avestan zari-, Lithuanian geltonas, Polish zolty, Russian zeltyj; and Sanskrit harih "yellow, tawny yellow," hiranyam "gold."
Among the "green" words are Irish glass, Welsh and Breton glas, Lithuanian zalias, Old Church Slavonic zelenu, Polish zielony, and Russian zelenyj. In some Celtic languages, these words shade into words for "blue" or "gray." Old Irish glass and Welsh glas, in addition to "green" also can mean "gray, blue." Perhaps this is from the color of the sea. Other Indo-European languages seem to have had specific "sea-color" words, which of course would shift in exact meaning as the color of the surface of the sea shifts, encompasing blue and green and gray. Among such words are or were Old English hæwen, Serbo-Croatian sinji, and Lithuanian šyvas. In Latin and Greek, the ancient root yielded words that meant neither one color nor the other, but "greenish-yellow." Latin galbus "greenish-yellow" is the source of Old French jalne, later jaune, source of the disease name jaundice, which literally means "yellowness." From the Greek form of the root come a range of modern words in English whose connection is not always apparent. They stem from Greek khloros "greenish-yellow color, pale green," khloe "young green shoot," and kholos "bile." From khloros comes chlorine, coined in 1810 by Sir Humphry Davy and named for its color; chlorophyll, coined in French (1818) from khloros and phyllon "a leaf."

Saint Patrick Halfpenny, an Irish coin from the 1670s.

Okay, ...show us the green. The slang ‘greenback’ to refer to a printed U.S. dollar bill takes us back to Lincoln and an effort to raise cash for the Civil War effort. An earlier association may be had with the somewhat mysterious St. Patrick copper halfpenny which, although minted for use in Ireland, became accepted legal tender in New Jersey in 1682 and it's believed that the coins remained in general circulation until the early 19th century. Ah, ...copper can turn green (think about the Statue of Liberty) and I’m sure many of the St. Patrick coppers took on a greenish hue soon after their production. Green and cash sometimes opens the door for ...envy, one of those Roman Catholic seven mortal sins, as opposed to the venial or forgivable sins. As one of the ‘Seven Deadly Sins’ – all are encouraged to consult Dante and Shakespeare, research the idiom of being “green with envy,” and be careful. Our English word ‘sin’ may have its origin in an obscure term used in Greek archery contests when one misses the mark, but a sin remains a sin whether or not it’s major or minor league. Last week, the Vatican created a new sin: not behaving in a ‘green’ manner. Yup, it’s now a sin not to be green. We return to green as the color of life and nature and the Church has now declared that polluting the planet is a sin. They also mentioned other new sins about drug-trafficking, bio-ethics and stem-cell research, and social and economic injustice. I’d almost enjoy an attempt at cleverness by claiming that ‘green’ is the new something or the other, but green deserves its position as a primary color and I’ll let that spectrum alone for now.

For over forty-five years, the Chicago River has been dyed green to celebrate St. Patrick’s Day. I saw the dying accomplished on a few occasions and was filled with the irony of the process, as an orange colored chemical is used to turn the river green (click on the Chicago River hyperlink above and watch the video which has someone comparing the color and texture of the chemical used to the instant beverage, Tang). Orange to green – there’s something most Irish, whether from the north or south, would likely respond to. As I’m a product of a mixed marriage, Dad being from the north and Mom being from the south, I find it exquisitely ironic and very Irish. I wish I was in Chicago this past weekend to see it again...

A glass of Guinness Extra Stout, (perhaps on a Samuel Adams Lager coaster (Weiss, Peter. 2000. “The Physics of Fizz.” Science News. 157, 19: 300-302).

Still, I’m in Boston and dressed in black. However, there’s a green inside which isn’t envy. Spring will be coming soon and I look forward to talking with the trees again. We’ve much to discuss. May your dinner be boiled and your pint built correctly.

Remaining scared of bunnies,*
Rick

* A ref to an old Matt Groening’s “Life in Hell” weekly installment which continues to make me chuckle at the childishly absurd.

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