MY LADY'S HANDS

Evening Star, Issue 22595, 12 March 1937, Page 10

MY LADY'S HANDS

ROLE IN HISTORY AND ROMANCE My lady’s hand occupied a prominent part in romance and history (says the ‘Daily Mail’). It is the lover Florizel •who says to the coy Eerdita in ‘ A "Winter’s Tale ’: As soft as dove’s down and as white as it; Or Ethiopian’s tooth or the fanned snow, That’s bolted by the northern basts twice o’er. We know that Aphrodite’s hand had “rosy slender fingers,’’ and that the hand of one of Cleopatra’s women threw Antony into raptures, but not long enough to break the spell cast around him by the “ glorious sorceress of the Nile.” The hands of the Egyptian women were celebrated for their contour, and the old necromancers of Rameson days used to hold them in awe for their delicate lines. , Old history says that the hand of Anne of Austria was as “ white as snow,” and that the world knows that good Queen Bess was not very proud of the shape of her royal fingers. _ It was not enough that she was destined to lend her name toi the golden age of literature. As she aged her hand became more and more unshapely, much to her chargin, and the ladies of her court who were much richer than the Queen in this respect received more than one rebuff. Yet her hand could sign the death warrant of Essex and of Mary of Scots, the unfortunate Queen whose white hand, fairer than her English cousin’s, lured the harper Rizzio to Ms death, “ where ye Queen’s staircase doth begin.” Queen Bess had not the only faulty hand to be found in history. Josephine was similarly afflicted, but Josephine was not so “ touchy ” on what was considered, a royal misfortune. Possibly it was because the negress of Martinique, looking at that hand, saw the crown of an empress and the homage of a world. It was not a hand like Lady Macbeth’s, which “ all the perfumes of Araby ” could not sweeten. It is old Gower who sings :

T saw her weave the sleided silk '[With fingers long, small, white as milk, 'And the wily Vivien with her hand cast Merlin into the enchanted sleep. In the Arthurian tales we see the snowy fingers of Iseult, and Romeo breaks into raptures over Juliet’s hands. As an adjunct to beauty my lady’s hand has had a certain value in all climes and ages. It was never hidden in gloves by the beauties of Rome, and Cicero stepped aside from oratory long enough to speak of “ the subtle devices of the fingers” after seeing them at the lute. Old writers have left on record the assertion that it was Poppaea’s shapely hand more than her eyes that entranced Nero.