Who is Silvia? What is she?

Who is Silvia? what is she,
    That all our swains commend her?
Holy, fair, and wise is she;
    The heaven such grace did lend her,
That she might admirèd be.
Is she kind as she is fair?
    For beauty lives with kindness.
Love doth to her eyes repair,
    To help him of his blindness;
And, being helped, inhabits there.
Then to Silvia let us sing,
    That Silvia is excelling;
She excels each mortal thing
    Upon the dull earth dwelling;
To her let us garlands bring

~William Shakespeare, "Who is Silvia?"

Today I will pose a question. I will not give you the answer. I would, if I knew it, but I don't. Hence my asking of this question.

What is beauty? 

Think about that for a second. Answers will come to your head, if you think about them, you will most probably turn them down. 

Youth? Maybe with people, but certainly other things in nature can be beautiful without youth. In a barren, stark way sometimes, but beauty is there. And besides, even with people, not all young people are beautiful, and what of Walt Whitman's famous verse, "Beautiful Women?"

Women sit or move to and fro, some old, some young,
The young are beautiful--but the old are more beautiful than the young.

Purity? Purity is a broad category. To many subjects it may seem difficult to even notions of purity. If taken in it's quintessence, then perhaps we are getting closer to our answer, but is it not a type of purity that is the beauty of youth? That un-corrupted naivety?


Before we continue with our quest, let me make it clear I am not talking about simple aesthetic beauty, for what is considered aesthetically pretty changes a great deal even in a hundred years. I am attempting to get to the root of this principle.


I am starting to run dry. Love? Devotion? Kindness? Both are contributing factors, surely, but still seem not to reach the essential concept that allows us to use the word "Beauty" when describing so many different things.


Also consider that I am primarily a visual thinker, so in this blog post I only discussed visual beauty. Ponder how it pertains to music and other media forms as well.

Leave your answer in the comments section below.

Is there not beauty in old age as well as youth? ©Benjamin Goss

Is there not beauty even in a barren landscape? ©Bruce Percy

Life and Death? Is there not beauty in both? ©Unexpectedtales