Pulchritude Finally Has Its Name Cleared

It always starts out small. One little fact, a slight reference that intrigues and suddenly, I'm off. I'm reading from page to page, following wherever the links lead. I'm talking about my addiction to the Information Super Highway. Yes, the internet. One day, I read about modern day spies and next thing I know, I'm on wikipedia learning about every spy known to the CIA. And each lovely little link was a name I haven't heard before and that I MUST know. It was about 2 hours later when I looked up. This is how I lose time on the internet. It's bloody brilliant.

Yesterday, when I was at the gym, I watched Emmerdale, an English evening soap. It featured a stunning woman more in my hue. Yes, that's right, another 'Leyla', but this time, swanning about this tiny village Oop North, startling the local townspeople with her exoticness. A nice flash of colour, I thought. Anyway, the subtitles weren't on (thanks a lot, David Lloyd) and I couldn't figure out if she was meant to be Iranian or Mediterranean.

Naturally, this morning I turn to the internet. Sadly, I am only able to find out that the actress, Rokshaneh Ghawam-Shahidi, is of Persian ancestry. Apparently, not one viewer who watches Emmerdale gives a hoot from which ancestry the actual soap family hails. Not one of my more fruitful searches.

Until I scroll down and read the two comments below the actress' picture on The Holy Soap (Yes, that's what the site is called! What? It's not mine. Never been there before, I swear.) The first comment is fairly standard 'most stunning woman on TV', but the second is a beauty of alliteration and just plain punchy. Possibly my two favourite things when it comes to words.

It's just two words: Persian Pulchritude.

Hmmm. Is this code? Is it rude? I confess I've never bothered to look up 'pulchritude' and always assumed since it looks dry and nasty, it must mean something unpleasant and not particularly interesting. Nothing for it but to put it through Merriam-Webster. And I'm surprised. Genuinely and happily surprised. It's not often that I completely misjudge a word.

pul·chri·tude : physical comeliness

Pulchritude, my sincere apologies. You are a gem in the rough.

Okay, meaning understood. Still, the whole phrase just doesn't sit right with me. Why would someone put the two together, even for the glory of true alliteration? Most people who comment on the internet (especially The Holy Soap, I imagine. No offense, HS) don't really bother to go to those lengths.

Not satisfied, I put the whole phrase through Google. Next thing I know, I'm onto this Nicolas Poussin painting. See? Isn't it gorgeous, velvety dark and vibrantly bright all at once? I would never have come across this if I'd just minded my own business.

So there I am, reading this article (Poussin's "Esther before Ahasuerus": Beauty, Majesty, Bondage by one Jonathan Unglaub) on Poussin's painting of the same name. Scanning, really, for Persian Pulchritude, which Google insists will appear somewhere in this 22 page art history thesis.

Okay. At this point, I do realise that I should walk away. That this is why P calls me crazy in my research mode. [I think he really means tenacious, but I let it slide. It's one of his favourite peeves.] But I'm so close. How can I walk away?

So, I read on about Esther, the beautiful Queen who is secretly a Jew and swoons before her angry King's countenance (you may have guessed he's the guy in the bright red robe). I'm rewarded for my determination on the 6th page. Turns out, the King chooses Esther from a collection of virginal beauties brought together for this purpose and some art historian is geekily overwhelmed by this idea of 'Persian Pulchritude' arrayed before the King. Esther, of course, is the most beautiful, yadda, yadda, yadda.

But, I do love cracking a mystery. I now want to run up to people and inexplicably shout 'Persian Pulchritude, ' while punching my fist in the air.

Oh dear, I wonder if you're regretting the peep into my mind-workings now.