J.R.C. Cousland, «‘Her Flesh Was as Grass’: Vita Adam et Evae 10.1», Vol. 81 (2000) 507-510

The Vita Adam et Evae uses an unusual metaphor to describe Eve’s state when she ceases her penitential immersion in the Tigris river: ‘her flesh was as grass from the cold of the water’ (caro eius erat sicut herba). While a number of points of comparison have been adduced to explain the metaphor, including movement and texture, it is more likely to be the colour of Eve’s skin — she is as pale as grass from the cold of the water.

For when I look at you a moment, then I have no longer power to speak; But my tongue keeps silence, straightaway a subtle flame has stolen beneath my flesh, with my eyes I see nothing, my ears are humming, A cold sweat covers me, and a trembling seizes me all over, I am paler than grass (xlwro/tera de_ poi/aj e!mmi [31.14-15]), and it seems to me that I seem to be not far short of death (31.7-16 ap. ‘Longinus’, De subl. 10.2)¹¹. 

        Here, ‘paler than grass’ is best taken as descriptive of Sappho’s deathly pallor ¹². Certainly this is the way that ‘Longinus’ has interpreted the passage, since he comments on how fittingly Sappho describes all her faculties leaving her (pa/nq' w(j a)llo/tria dioixo/mena), her complexion (ta_j o!yeij th_n xro/an) among them¹³.

        An echo of Sappho’s metaphor can be found later in the Greek romantic tradition in Longus’ Daphnis and Chloe¹⁴, where it is used to describe Daphnis in the travails of love: xlwro/teron to_ pro/swpon h]n po/aj qerinh=j¹⁵. Here, Daphnis’ face is ‘greener than summer grass’. While this could suggest a deep green, it is more likely, given the Lesbian locale, to refer to sere and withered grass. As Irwin remarks, ‘Longus plainly takes xlwro/j as typical of grass dried by the summer’s heat, and so no longer green but pale’¹⁶.

        While these two examples are limited, they nevertheless provide an interesting point of comparison: flesh ‘as grass’ in both suggests a pathological condition. The pallor of Eve and Sappho and Daphnis is expressive of an