Literary notes about Vermeil (AI summary)
The term "vermeil" is employed in literature as a vivid and multifaceted descriptor, invoking images of bright, warm red hues that often carry both aesthetic and symbolic weight. Writers use it to paint scenes where natural beauty and fiery passion converge—transforming a blush on a lover’s cheek [1, 2, 3] or the radiant sheen of luxurious fabrics [4, 5] into emblems of life and vitality. In some works, it even extends to the brutal imagery of spilled blood or the worn scars of battle [6, 7, 8], while at other moments it softens the visage of dawn or adorns delicate blossoms and ornamental artifacts [9, 10, 11]. This dynamic usage illustrates how "vermeil" not only colors the physical world but also imbues it with deeper layers of emotional and cultural significance [12, 13].
- Now the golden Morn aloft Waves her dew-bespangled wing, With vermeil cheek and whisper soft She woos the tardy Spring:
— from The Golden TreasuryOf the Best Songs and Lyrical Poems in the English Language - The vermeil of her lip flushed and paled alternate, from the pink of the wild rose-leaf to the red of its autumnal berry.
— from The Black Douglas by S. R. (Samuel Rutherford) Crockett - The vermeil-tinctur'd lip, Love-darting eyes, and tresses like the morn, what shall immortalise the tones which "turned sense to soul?"
— from The Romance of Biography (Vol 1 of 2) or Memoirs of Women Loved and Celebrated by Poets, from the Days of the Troubadours to the Present Age. 3rd ed. 2 Vols. by Mrs. (Anna) Jameson - The king's seneschal, hight Sir Kay, served Arthur's table, clad in a fair dalmatic of vermeil silk.
— from Arthurian Chronicles: Roman de Brut by Wace - She was richly dressed in a kirtle of vermeil silk, broidered with gold, and her mantle was worth the spoil of a king's castle.
— from Aucassin & Nicolette, and Other Mediaeval Romances and Legends - Ils combattent, versant à flots leur sang vermeil.
— from La Légende des Siècles by Victor Hugo - Do you not see how my blood is staining these thorns and briars a vermeil red?"
— from Aucassin & Nicolette, and Other Mediaeval Romances and Legends - He let the rein on his neck decline, And spurred him hard against Count Gerein, Shattered the vermeil shield he bore,
— from The Harvard Classics, Volume 49, Epic and SagaWith Introductions And Notes - Rather with roses and each vermeil flower, A sight, but little distant, might have sworn, That they were all on fire above their brow.
— from Divine Comedy, Cary's Translation, Purgatory by Dante Alighieri - Her vermeil-tinctured lips were new-blown roses that engrossed the sight, and seemed to solicit to be plucked.
— from Imogen: A Pastoral Romance by William Godwin - [84] Spenser uses this word: “How the red roses flush up in her cheeks, And the pure snow with goodly vermeil stain.”
— from The Curiosities of Heraldry by Mark Antony Lower - The blueness of the bird of March, The vermeil of the tufted larch, Are fused in one magenta flood.
— from Margot Asquith, an Autobiography - Two Volumes in One by Margot Asquith - The word is used with a bold extension of meaning in Les Voix Intérieures: A Eugène , where the appetite of boyhood is called 'l'appétit vermeil.'
— from La Légende des Siècles by Victor Hugo
