"Ophelia in the guise of a canned peach: "her whole being floats in sweet ripe passion'"

"Or again we can base it on the Greek rendering of an old Danske serpent name. Lithe, lithping, thin-lipped Ophelia. Amleth's wet dream, a mermaid of Lethe, a rare water serpent, Russalka letheana of science (to match your long purples). While he was busy with German servant maids, she at home, in an embayed window, with the icy spring wind rattling the pane, innocently flirted with Osric. Her skin was so tender that if you merely looked at it a rosy spot would appear. The uncommon cold of a Botticellian angel tinged her nostrils with pink and suffused her upperlip - you know, when the rims of the lips merge with the skin. She proved to be a kitchen wench too - but in the kitchen of a vegetarian. Ophelia, serviceableness. Died in passive service. The fair Ophelia. A first Folio with some neat corrections and a few bad mistakes. 'My dear fellow? (we might have Hamlet say to Horatio'), she was as hard as nails in spite of her physical softness. And slippery: a posy made of eels. She was one of those thin-blooded pale-eyed lovely slim slimy ophidian maidens that are both hotly hysterical and hopelessly frigid. Quietly, with a kind of devilish daintiness she minced her dangerous course the war her father's ambition pointed. Even mad, she went on teasing her secret with the dead man's finger. Which kept pointing at me. Oh, of course I loved her like forty thousand brothers, as thick as thieves (terracotta jars, a cypress, a fingernail moon) but we all were Lamord's pupils, if you know what I mean.' He might add that he had caught a cold in the heat during the dumb show. Undine's pink gill, iced watermelon, l'aurore grelottant en robe rose et verte. Her sleazy lap."

in
Bend Sinister, V. Nabokov

not in public literature dot org ("a collection of only the finest literature!"), but book of the day is Leonardo's notebooks. a sure treat (define literature). they would look astounding on my sweet white shelf. some words are as precious as OOOoOlong tea.

- - -

Baudelaire’s “Le Crepuscule du Matin.”
Cf. Part3, Ch.9, “Dawn de Laire”
 “Dawn
en robe rose et verte (430).”

L'aurore grelottante en robe rose et verte
S'avançait lentement sur la Seine déserte,
Et le sombre Paris, en se frottant les yeux,
Empoignait ses outils, vieillard laborieux.
--"Le Crepuscule du Matin"
      Baudelaire