Literary notes about saffron (AI summary)
Writers have long drawn on saffron’s vivid, shimmering quality to evoke both natural beauty and rich symbolic meaning. In many texts the hue is portrayed as a glowing, warm yellow that transforms a scene—think of skies melting from deep rose into saffron light at dawn ([1],[2]) or landscapes bathed in a radiant saffron glow ([3],[4]). Saffron also colors garments and artifacts with a brilliance that conveys nobility and passion, as seen in characters donning saffron-tinted linen or vibrant saffron robes ([5],[6],[7],[8],[9],[10],[11],[12]). Whether used to describe a meteor’s flash of saffron light ([13],[14],[15]) or the delicate interplay of colors in nature ([16],[17]), the color saffron remains a potent literary device, imbuing both setting and character with a sense of warmth, vitality, and often, transcendence.
- He looked up at the saffron sky and snuffed the scorching air.
— from King Spruce, A Novel by Holman Day - As they came to the outer door, the dawn was inexpressibly beautiful,—deep rose melting into saffron, beneath a tremulous morning star.
— from Malbone: An Oldport Romance by Thomas Wentworth Higginson - An edge of serene light followed in the west a band of saffron radiance that widened until the cloud had vanished beyond the eastern peaks.
— from Mountain Blood: A Novel by Joseph Hergesheimer - The sea ahead lightened up, became pale yellow, then warmed into saffron, and, when the sun rose, blazed into liquid gold.
— from The Lighthouse by R. M. (Robert Michael) Ballantyne - Her chemise is of very fine saffron-tinted linen.
— from Life on a Mediaeval BaronyA Picture of a Typical Feudal Community in the Thirteenth Century by William Stearns Davis - [18] in their casques, the Salagram [18] round their neck; and having cased themselves in armour and put on the saffron robe, they bound the mor
— from Annals and Antiquities of Rajasthan, v. 2 of 3or the Central and Western Rajput States of India by James Tod - In battle, especially when they expected to die, the Rājpūts wore saffron-coloured robes as at a wedding.
— from The Tribes and Castes of the Central Provinces of India, Volume 4 by R. V. (Robert Vane) Russell - Hymen begins to put off his saffron [464] robe: keep thy wife i’ the state of grace.
— from The Works of John Marston. Volume 1 by John Marston - The sun had taken his plunge, but he had left behind him his robes of saffron and gold.
— from The Sky Pilot: A Tale of the Foothills by Ralph Connor - The former, as well as his son, whom he had created Augustus, was dressed in Gallic trousers, 79 a saffron tunic, and a robe of purple.
— from History of the Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire — Volume 1 by Edward Gibbon - No clansmen gathered round him, and no "Sassenach" soldiery rent away his saffron robe.
— from Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science, Vol. 20, August 1877 by Various - [287] of those who had fallen in their ‘saffron robes,’ a sacrifice for her preservation.
— from Annals and Antiquities of Rajasthan, v. 1 of 3 by James Tod - The gills are free, ventricose, crowded, saffron-yellow, to ferruginous.
— from The Mushroom, Edible and OtherwiseIts Habitat and its Time of Growth by Miron Elisha Hard - Electric white, shaded saffron yellow.
— from Roses and Rose Growing by Rose Georgina Kingsley - Still, they don't catch up with him; he streaks it like some saffron meteor.
— from The Wit and Humor of America, Volume I. (of X.) - but not that gorgeous, hard Alexandrian blue—melted into peacock and cool saffron hues.
— from Visionaries by James Huneker - In some lights the saffron prevails, in other lights vermilion, and yet in other lights the grays and blacks predominate.
— from Titan of Chasms: The Grand Canyon of Arizona by John Wesley Powell
