Why do ancient poems use "green silk" to refer to black hair? What is the color of green?

To understand the color of green, let's start with the shape of the character "青". The character "青" is split into "生" and "月", and "生" means "to grow" and "月" means "to grow" and "月" means "to grow". "Sheng" means "growth", and "Yue" is the side of the flesh moon, which means "body", so the combination of "Sheng" and "Yue" means "body". The combination of "生" and "月" means "growth of the body" and "growth of life". In Shuowen Jiezi (说文解字), Xu Shen (徐慎), a literalist of the Eastern Han Dynasty, interpreted "青" to mean the three-month growth period from the spring equinox to the summer solstice, when everything grows. During this stage, everything grows and the earth is green, so "qing" has the meaning of "green". Youth, young people, green years, green mountains, green water, grass green ...... "Green" is full of vitality, full of life green.

"Green" also has the meaning of black, and in ancient times was very common. In the ancient times, the servants wore black and were called "green men". In traditional Chinese theater, the "green man" often wore black clothes, like Su San in the play "Su San Rising". The word "green" in the phrase "green eyes" refers to black eyes. The term "green silk" is often used to refer to black hair, or a beautiful woman with a full head of black hair. For example, Li Bai's famous line in the Tang Dynasty's "Wine will be advanced" reads, "Do you not see that the mirror in the high hall is saddened by gray hair, and that it is as green as green silk in the morning and has become snow in the evening". Zhou Zizhi of the Song Dynasty wrote in "Sheng Chazi", "Green silk knotted with a dawn maid, and a lazy mood in the mirror."

"Xunzi - persuade learning" in the "green, taken from the blue and blue" of the famous sentence, and later refined the "green from the blue and better than blue" idiom, the metaphor of the student better than the teacher, the latter better than the meaning of the predecessor. Here the "green" is indigo, is a color between blue and violet, traditional artifacts and clothing often use this color, giving people a simple and solemn, strong sense of square, is a very favorite color of the ancients.