The word azure is a multifaceted descriptor in literature, used to evoke both tangible beauty and abstract ideals. In classical epics, it beautifies the heavens and the seas, as when Homer describes a sun rolled over a wide azure firmament ([1]) and the celestial realms of gods and heroes ([2], [3], [4]). Beyond nature, azure adorns human features and mythic figures, lending an ethereal quality to characters with azure hair or eyes (as seen in Pinocchio’s portrayals, [5], [6], [7], [8]). The color is also central in heraldic language, where it signifies nobility and valor on crests and shields, illustrated repeatedly in heraldic treatises ([9], [10], [11], [12], [13]). Moreover, azure imbues landscapes and moods with a haunting splendor—as in the description of endless azure waves or skies that serve as canvases for both passion and solitude ([14], [15], [16])—thereby enriching literary works with visual, emotional, and symbolic depth.
- Did not the sun, through heaven's wide azure roll'd, For three long years the royal fraud behold?
— from The Odyssey by Homer
- The goddess of the azure eyes began: "Son of Laertes!
— from The Odyssey by Homer
- (Herself a mortal once, of Cadmus' strain, But now an azure sister of the main)
— from The Odyssey by Homer
- a mortal, like thyself, am I; No glorious native of yon azure sky: In form, ah how unlike their heavenly kind!
— from The Odyssey by Homer
- She had azure hair and a face white as wax.
— from The Adventures of Pinocchio by Carlo Collodi
- “Oh, Lovely Maiden with Azure Hair,” cried Pinocchio, “open, I beg of you.
— from The Adventures of Pinocchio by Carlo Collodi
- Tormented by the wish to see his father and his fairy sister with azure hair, he raced like a greyhound.
— from The Adventures of Pinocchio by Carlo Collodi
- Then the Fairy of the Azure Hair sent the coach to rescue me and the doctors, after looking at me, said, ‘If he is not dead, then he is surely alive,’
— from The Adventures of Pinocchio by Carlo Collodi
- Azure, a ship in sail or, for Caithness"; and over all, dividing the quarters, a cross engrailed "sable," for Sinclair.
— from A Complete Guide to Heraldry by Arthur Charles Fox-Davies
- The Precentor : Argent, on a saltire azure a fleur-de-lis or.
— from A Complete Guide to Heraldry by Arthur Charles Fox-Davies
- —Jasper Tudor, Duke of Bedford: France and England quarterly, a bordure azure, charged with martlets or.
— from A Complete Guide to Heraldry by Arthur Charles Fox-Davies
- Thus the arms of Bohun are: "Azure, a bend argent, cottised between six lioncels rampant or."
— from A Complete Guide to Heraldry by Arthur Charles Fox-Davies
- The Admiral : Two anchors in saltire behind the arms, the stocks of the anchors in chief azure, semé-de-lis or.
— from A Complete Guide to Heraldry by Arthur Charles Fox-Davies
- Then they carried him across the sea on the saddest and most gorgeous ship that was ever mirrored in the azure waves of the Mediterranean.
— from Best Russian Short Stories
- and the grand hall, with its gilding, its azure, its statues, its pointed arches, its pillars, its immense vault, all fretted with carvings?
— from Notre-Dame de Paris by Victor Hugo
- He stared a long time at the yellow clearing, warmed by the sun, watched a long string of cranes float in the azure sky, and turned facing me.
— from Project Gutenberg Compilation of Short Stories by Chekhov by Anton Pavlovich Chekhov