The Grass is Greener on the Otherside. Why are people Green with Envy?

When a jealous people walks by your project darting their eyes on your work you can say they are green with envy. Why green? Why not blue with envy or red with envy? The colour associations with emotions have connections like blue with sadness and red with rage. Green is associated with growth and nature.

The colour was once a bad luck colour for theatrical works in medieval mystery plays when Judas’ costume was green and yellow. Many actors lost their lives after playing this role. It was also a colour used to portray devilish ghouls in art.

The origins of the term comes from Shakespeare’s plays. He used green in the association of the colour green for illness and jealousy most of the time. But on occasion, green can be applied to youth and the conditions of love.

In the Merchant of Venice (Act 3 – Scene 2), Portia advises Bassanio to postpone a choice over fears of making the wrong choice due to fears of living in uncertainty. But Bassanio chooses the lead chest containing Portia’s picture making her joyous. Then Portia gives a ring to Bassanio has a symbolic act symbolizing that she’s giving herself to him insisting to treasure the ring. Uses the line green-eye jealousy for Bassanio aggravates.

PORTIA, ⌜aside⌝ 
 How all the other passions fleet to air,
 As doubtful thoughts and rash embraced despair,
 And shudd’ring fear, and green-eyed jealousy!
 O love, be moderate, allay thy ecstasy,
In measure rain thy joy, scant this excess!
 I feel too much thy blessing. Make it less,
 For fear I surfeit.

In Othello (Act 3 – Scene 3), Iago is confronting Othello against his jealousy of Desdemona after insinuating that Cassio’s avoidance of Othello is suspicious.

IAGO

O, beware, my lord, of jealousy!
 It is the green-eyed monster which doth mock
 The meat it feeds on. That cuckold lives in bliss
 Who, certain of his fate, loves not his wronger;
 But O, what damnèd minutes tells he o’er
Who dotes, yet doubts; suspects, yet ⟨strongly⟩ loves!

In Anthony and Cleopatra (Act 3 – Scene 2), Enobarbus informs Agrippa about a sickness. The green might be referring to the degree of illness.

ENOBARBUS 
 They have dispatched with Pompey; he is gone.
 The other three are sealing. Octavia weeps
 To part from Rome. Caesar is sad, and Lepidus,
Since Pompey’s feast, as Menas says, is troubled
 With the greensickness.

It was also a colour used in the Elizabethan era to describe land ownership, implied wealth, and fertility and freshness of the land. During the Middle Ages, the creation of urban sprawl near grassy wetlands surrounded by cottages to woodlands surrounded by cottages. They were places like a park for recreational use when planned but unplanned it was a form of scattered agriculture for starter villages. It was also a symbol of wealth inequality and places of public punishment.

They were public meeting places for irate citizens to protest policies that affected labour and work conditions. During the Peasants’ Revolt in 1381 a popular movement against serfdom and poll tax that lost in ultimate defeat. In 1853 Tolpuddle, England local farm labourers gathered lawfully to discuss forming a labour union only to be sentenced to be deported to Australia within six months of the gathering. Then a huge protest and petition to release Tolpuddle Martyrs” that resulted a full pardon two years later.

Pillories and stocks were placed in village greens for public humiliation. Offebders were placed in these human cages and traps for villagers to pelt food at them and mock them.

The idiom “the grass is greener on the otherside” refers to when someone believes that things could be better if circumstances were different someplace else. It can also mean that someone wants to covet a neighbour’s fortune with harvest, wealth or luck for themselves.

“The corne in an other mans ground semeth euer more fertyll and plentifull then doth oure own.” (The corn in another man’s ground seems ever more fertile and plentiful than our own does.)

A Latin proverb cited by Erasmus of Rotterdam was translated into English by Richard Taverner in 1545.

The poet Ovid takes this further, saying in his “Art of Love” (1 BC) that “the harvest is always richer in another man’s field.”

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Reference

https://journals.openedition.org/erea/4465#tocfrom1n2

https://heritagecalling.com/2024/09/26/the-history-of-england-village-greens/