ODD PAPERS
ON' BEARDS
(By
Beards !
“Q.R.S.”)
The very word gives birth to a mental photograph of George Bernard Shaw or of George V., by the Grace of God, etc., or of the ex-Tsar of all the Russias.
Is there anything characteristically foreign in the wearing of a beard? The bearded races of mankind have ever held the beard in high honour. It is a sign of full manhood; the lad or the eunuch is beardless, and the bearded woman is reckoned a witch, a loathsome thing to all ages. Adam, the primal man, was by tradition created with a beard. All the patriachs, indeed, upheld this weight of tradition because among Jews, as among other people, the beard was considered as typitfal of wisdom. Think of Aaron’s beard, down which, flowed the goodly oil —an old-fashioned picture of brothers dwelling in amity. It is hard to imagine Moses without a beard, or David, or Solomon. One recalls Sir Roger de Coverley's dictum that beards lend dignity to human faces.
There is rather a curious verse in the 19th chapter of Leviticus, the great Moral Code': “Ye shall not round the corners of your heads, neither shalt thou mar the corners of thy beard.” It may seem rather strange that religion should have had anything to do with so comparatively unimportant a matter as the wearing of a beard. Perhaps the injunction in Leviticus was intended to wean the ancient Hebrews from a heathen practice, for the priests of heathen cults removed the hair from their faces. Again, another consideration may have entered into the prohibition. It was 'believed that to retain the facial hirsute ■was a protection against demons. Clearly, a rational explanation for this, as for any other superstition, is impossible. How can one explain superstition rationally? However that may be, and whatever explanation may account for the fact, certain it is that a beard came to be re-' garded as characteristic of men of the East. In the Middle Ages it was a popular sport to tear out the hairs of a Jew’s beard, and, in the eighteenth century, rulers— Frederick the Great was one of them—actually promulgated law’s enforcing the wearing of a beard by Jews in order that they might be distinguished as Jews. But it seems that, throughout the history of civilized man, there were fashions in wearing the hair of the head as well as the hair of the beard. Pictures of different centuries show portraits with hair and beard done, in different styles. It, however, seems that by far the greater number of such portraits show the face without the beard.
In Italy the beardless face owed its popularity to the fashions of the Romans. Scipio Africanus is said to have been the first Roman who was shaved every day, and for a long period the shaven face was the rule in the best circles of the Roman world. It was not until the Emperor Hadrian introduced the fashion of wearing beards that the beard was again adopted by Society in the Roman Empire. If I remember rightly, the story goes that Hadrian had to wear .a beard in order to hide certain growths on his lower chin. Speaking generally a beard is fashionable in the Orient and down to this day Arabs swear by Mahomet’s beard. Among the Greeks the beard was a sign of honour and Plutarch relates the story of a man w’ith a flowing beard who, when asked why he allowed it to grow so long, replied: “When I look at it I am reminded that my conduct should not be unworthy of it.”
The fashion also varied with individuals. Alexander the Great, Caesar and Napoleon were all clean shaven. So were a large number of Popes. Many of the medieval Emperors must have worn beards, and Frederick Barbarossa’s has become famous in history. Jewish rabbis are always expected to wear a beard, and the particular kind prescribed was what in the elegant phrase of the popuular press of to-day is called a “goatee.” Among the ancient Hebrews the beard was a sign of honour, and to tamper with it was to offer insult to its wearer. If further proof were needed as to the variableness of fashions in regard to beards, it will be found in the prescription of the Catholic Church that its clerics should be shaven, whereas in the Greek church clerics are under compulsion to wear a beard. It will be recalled that beards were fashionable in Spain until Philip V. set his influence against them, and the Spaniards in hie day used to say: “Ever since we have lost our beards we appear to have lost our souls.”
To-day practice in regard to beards varies considerably. In Eastern Europe, the beard is all the vogue; in Western Europe and America it is the exception. Anyone who has been in Germany will know that Germans, as a people, cultivate the beard. The nearer East seems to be abandoning the full beard, even in Mahommedan lands. In. England the assertion would be justified that, despite King George’s example, the vogue is for men to shave their faces. It is curious to reflect how the beard has played a prominent part in folk-lore. A man with a red beard was usually regarded as a magician; a man with a blue beard —well, we all know about him. To wear the beard parted denotes cunning; to wear the beard thin was the characteristic of the wily man; a thick beard characterised the foolish?
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https://paperspast.natlib.govt.nz/newspapers/ST19300531.2.124.4
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Southland Times, Issue 21097, 31 May 1930, Page 13
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926ODD PAPERS Southland Times, Issue 21097, 31 May 1930, Page 13
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