Studies on Homer and the Homeric Age, Vol. 3 of 3

j. To the serried masses of the Greeks: πυκιναὶ κίνυντο φάλαγγες κυάνεαι. Il. iv. 281. Now this epithet must have been derived from their arms, and these would probably be composed in the main of two elements, not easy to combine in a common idea of colour; firstly, copper, which is ruddy; and secondly, the hides of oxen upon the shields and elsewhere. Homer never (except in Il. xiii. 703, and Od. xiii. 32) describes these animals by any epithet of colour. In those two passages they are βόε οἴνοπε. This epithet will be considered presently. In the meantime, we may assume it as probable, that a dark colour would predominate, and that accordingly we should so understand κυάνεαι: but the leaning towards blue, which so often characterizes the epithet, thus entirely escapes. The word is also applied to the Trojan host, in Il. xvi. 66.

k. Thetis puts on mourning garments for Patroclus, when about to appear to Achilles, Il. xxiv. 93.

κάλυμμ’ ἕλε δῖα θεάωνκυάνεον· τοῦ δ’ οὔτι μελάντερον ἔπλετο ἔσθος.

Here Homer is careful to inform us that the κάλυμμα, or hood and mantle, was the blackest garment possible; and, since in Il. iv. 287 we find that he was acquainted with pitch, we need not scruple to assume that here he speaks literally, and either means a real black, which, nevertheless, he also calls κυάνεον, or sees no difference between the genuine black and the colour of κύανος.

l. When the wave of Charybdis retires, the shore appears ψάμμῳ κυανέῃ. Now the colour of sea-sand, when it has just been left by the wave, is a dull but also rather a light brown.

We take now the compounds.

1. κυανοχαίτης is applied a. To Neptune, e. g. Il. xv. 174.

b. To a mare, Il. xx. 224.

2. κυανῶπις is applied to Amphitrite, or the sea, beating on rocks, Od. xii. 60.

3. κυανόπεζα is used for the foot of a beautiful table (Il. xi. 628). Here possibly substance may be designated rather than colour. Metal at the foot would give steadiness to a table.

4. We have κυανόπρωρος and κυανοπρώρειος for the prow of a ship. Evidently it is the coloured prow: for otherwise the prow would be of the same hue with the rest of the ship. (Il. xv. 693, et alibi.) So the prows of ships are called μιλτοπάρηοι, in Il. ii. 637, and Od. ix. 125. Now μίλτος was red earth or ochre; and yet it seems that Homer uses μιλτοπάρηος as equivalent to κυανόπρωρος. For the first epithet is applied in the Catalogue to the ships led by Ulysses; and the second in Od. x. 127 to the vessel in which he sailed.

The uses of this group of words thus appear to exhibit a degree of indefiniteness, hardly reconcilable with the supposition that Homer possessed accurate ideas of colour. There is no one colour that can cover them all. The hood of Thetis is closely akin to black; the prow of a ship to at least a dull red; the sand is of russet or a lightish brown; the cloud a leaden grey; the hair and eyebrows are of a deep but not a dull colour; the cornice in the hall of Alcinous must have been in relief and contrast as compared with the copper wall, and sufficiently light or clear to strike the eye at a distance, in an interior lighted at night only from the ground. With perhaps this exception, the word ‘dark’ will cover all the uses of κυάνεος: but dark derives its force from a relation to light, and not to colour.

Of φοίνιξ, πόλιος.

5. Φοίνιξ in Homer is clearly a word descriptive of colour: but it as clearly partakes of the indefinite character attaching to the other words of the class.

a. The blood drawn by Pandarus from Menelaus is compared to the colour φοίνιξ, used for staining ivory. In this simile, the sense leans to red, especially as the hue of ivory is so near to that of flesh (Il. iv. 141). It is mentioned in other places, probably with the same sense, as an ornamental dye.

b. In Il. xxiii. 454, we learn that one of the horses of Diomed was φοίνιξ, with a round white mark on his forehead. Whether we render this bay or chestnut, it is materially different from the red colour of blood.

c. Φοίνιος is used for blood, Od. xviii. 96.

d. As is φοινὸς in Il. xvi. 159.

e. And φοινικόεις in Il. xxiii. 716. This word is also applied to a cloak, Il. x. 133.

f. A dragon or serpent, borne by an eagle, is φοινήεις, apparently because dappled or streaked with his own blood, Il. xii. 200-6, 218-21.

g. Ships are φοινικοπάρηοι, Od. xi. 123, and xxiii. 272: this word is apparently synonymous with μιλτοπάρηοι.

h. The serpent is δάφοινος ἐπὶ νῶτα, Il. ii. 308. And we have the δάφοινον δέρμα λέοντος, Il. x. 23.

On the whole, we trace here not less than three senses: that in which φοίνιξ is applied to the horse, which appears to be the equivalent of ξανθὸς, the more prevailing word: next, that of the tawny and dull-coloured lion’s hide: then that of the brighter but yet deep colour of blood, which is freely called πορφύρεος. So that φοίνιξ merely renders other words, and does not at all assist to make up deficiencies in the Homeric vocabulary for the expression of colour.

Considered as an epithet of colour, the word δάφοινος, meaning blood-red, is inappropriate to the dragon or serpent, and further serves to illustrate that vagueness, of which the signs multiply as we proceed.

6. πόλιος is applied in Homer as follows:

a. To human hair in connection with old age, Il. xxii. 74 et alibi.

b. To the sea, Il. i. 350 et passim. It remains to inquire, whether this refers to the sea, or to the foam upon it.

c. To iron, Il. ix. 366. xx. 261. Od. xxi. 3, 81. xxiv. 167.

d. To the hide of a wolf, which Dolon put on for his nocturnal expedition, Il. x. 334. The meaning of the word here appears to be not ‘gray’ but ‘white.’ It is Homer’s evident intention to exhibit Dolon as a sort of simpleton844 (x. 316, 17); and accordingly he takes a white covering, which makes him visible to the eye by night, so that Ulysses saw him (φράσατο, 339).

The last, then, of these four uses is white. The first clearly inclines to the same idea. The second might bear either of two senses. But iron cannot be brought nearer to white, even if we assume it to be always polished, than a bluish grey; which, in truth, is somewhat distant from white. It will, moreover, be seen, that Homer also describes iron as αἴθων, and as ἰόεις.

The quasi-adjectives of colour.

I now come to the class of words, in dealing with which it will be shown that they have not in general even the pretensions of those that have preceded to be treated as adjectives of definite colour.

7. χλωρὸς is used in Homer, a. Chiefly in a metaphorical sense, as directly descriptive of fear.

b. For the paleness of the face derived from fear, as in χλωροὶ ὑπαὶ δείους, Il. x. 376 and xv. 4. This use discloses to us the basis of the last-named metaphor.

c. For twigs, apparently when fresh-pulled by Eumæus to make a bed for Ulysses, who was an unexpected guest; Od. xvi. 47.

d. For honey, Il. xi. 630: where it must mean either pale, or fresh.

e. For the olive-wood club of the Cyclops in Od. ix. 320, 379. Here, for the first time, we find the word applied to an object that might perhaps be called green. But still there are two observations to be made. First, even the leaf of the olive is rather grey than green: and this is the bark, not the leaf, which is yet more grey, and yet less green. Secondly, the governing idea is not the greenness, but the newness: for Ulysses says that he heated it in the ashes until it was about to take fire, χλωρός περ ἐών; although freshly cut, and still seething with the sap.

f. The derivative χλωρηῒς is applied to the nightingale in Od. xix. 518, as a lover of the woods: and here the idea of greenness seems to be rather less faintly indicated.

Upon the whole, then, χλωρὸς indicates rather the absence than the presence of definite colour, although it is derived from χλοὴ, meaning young herbage. If regarded as an epithet of colour, it involves at once an hopeless contradiction between the colour of honey on the one side, and greenness on the other. Again, the more we assume it to mean green, the more startling it becomes that it could have taken paleness, as is manifestly the case, for its governing idea. Next to paleness, it serves chiefly for freshness, i. e. as opposed to what is stale or withered: a singular combination with the former sense. The idea of green we scarcely find, unless once, connected with this word in the poems of Homer: and yet it is a remarkable fact that there is no other word in the poems that can even be supposed to represent a colour, which, not the rainbow only, but every day nature, presents so largely to the eye.

8. I take next the word αἰθαλόεις. The Homeric sense of this word seems somewhat to resemble that of κυάνεος; although there is the difference between them, that the derivation here is from αἰθάλη, soot.

This epithet is applied by Homer, in sufficient conformity, as is contended, with the idea of soot, a. To the interior of the palace of Ulysses, Od. xxii. 239, and to that of Priam, Il. ii. 415. In the latter case the word will, as it appears from the context, bear to be construed with reference to the state of a house blackened by a conflagration.

b. To the dark ash κόνις αἰθαλόεσσα, which Achilles poured over his head, Il. xviii. 23, and which, in ver. 25, is called μέλαινα τέφρη: this material Laertes also used for the same purpose in Od. xxiv. 315. Yet the propriety of the second of these two applications depends, first, upon the rather hardy supposition, that both Achilles and Laertes had by them, at the moment of their sorrow, the remains of a wood-fire; and, secondly, upon the assumption that the word κόνις may mean fire-ashes as well as dust in general. But we may doubt both of these assumptions; while, if κόνις means ‘dust,’ and αἰθαλόεις ‘sooty,’ it becomes plain that this epithet is used, like others, with very great latitude.

9. It may be admitted that, at a first view, the words ῥοδόεις and ῥοδοδάκτυλος would appear to be in the strictest sense epithets of colour. But it still would seem that they add nothing to Homer’s defective means of expressing it: and not only so, but, in fact, scanty as is their use, it is so little congruous, that we are driven to suppose he must have employed these words in a sense not only elastic, but altogether indeterminate and purely figurative.

Ῥοδοδάκτυλος, or rosy-fingered, has become, through Homer’s example and authority, a classical epithet for the morning. It is, however, more open to criticism than is usually the case with the Homeric epithets. There is nothing strange in personifying Morn, in order to embellish her with an epithet belonging to personal beauty; but redness, applied to the fingers, and not merely to their tips, is more than equivocal in this respect, since that colour is only even admissible in the interior of the hand, which is the part not seen, and therefore presumably the part not intended in ῥοδοδάκτυλος.

There are certain very fugitive tints of the sky, which approach to the hue of the rose: but if Homer had the colour of that flower definitely in his view, it is most singular that he should never use it, either for the human form or otherwise, except on this and one other occasion only.

The nature of that other occasion is yet more strange. Hector’s corpse is anointed, in Il. xxiii. 186, with rosy oil, ῥοδόεντι ἐλαίῳ. It does not appear allowable to follow Damm in rendering this as oil made from roses: for we have no such thing as ἔλαιον in Homer, except from the olive-tree. It therefore applies to the hue of olive oil: and no conceivable use of an epithet could be more conclusive to show an extreme vagueness in the Poet’s ideas of colour, as well as probably in those of his age.

10. The violet, no less than the rose, has supplied Homer with epithets, which he has used in such a manner as to deprive them of all specific force as vehicles for the expression of a peculiar colour.

There is certainly a great temptation, when we find in Homer the ἰοειδέα πόντον, to give him credit for the full meaning of this very beautiful epithet, which he uses thrice for the sea (Il. ix. 298, Od. v. 55, xi. 106), and never in any other connection. But when we examine his employment of cognate words, it is obvious that he can mean little more by the epithet, than to convey a rather vague idea of darkness.

For he uses ἰόεις as an epithet for iron (Il. xxiii. 850): and ἰοδνεφὴς, first for the wool (Od. iv. 135) with which Helen is spinning. Here we might be tempted to presume a purple dye. Yet it would be a somewhat strained supposition: for what title have we to say that dyeing was in use among the Greeks of the Homeric age? Do we hear of any dye except that of the φοίνιξ, a name which tends to indicate a foreign character? And does not the introduction of the Mæonian or Carian woman in the simile of Il. iv. 141, to stain the ivory – a most simple example of the art, or scarcely an example at all – afford a strong presumption, that the art was foreign to Greece? Such is apparently the true inference: but, if it be the true one, then we at once lose the specific force of purple for all the mantles, carpets, and the like, in the poems; and we are only entitled to presume them to have been woven of a dark wool.

This construction is supported by the second and only other passage, in which Homer has used the word ἰοδνεφής. For here (Od. ix. 426) he speaks of the living sheep of Polyphemus as

καλοί τε μεγάλοι τε, ἰοδνεφὲς εἶρος ἔχοντες.

This passage appears evidently to apply to what we term black sheep, which are more strictly of a dark brown. So viewed, it affords another most striking token of the indeterminateness of Homeric colours, that the name of the violet can be employed with such a signification. And it also seems to carry forward the proof that the πορφύρεαι χλαῖναι, the ῥήγεα, and all other woven objects with that epithet annexed, were in reality either black or brown.

11. Homer employs the word οἴνοψ with evident relation to colour; but it is for two objects only, viz.

a. For oxen, in Il. xiii. 703, and Od. xiii. 32.

b. For the sea, without reference to any peculiar state of it, in Il. i. 350, et alibi.

There is no small difficulty in combining these two uses by reference to the idea of a common colour. The sea is blue, grey, or green. Oxen are black, bay, or brown. I do not refer to their lighter colours, which are excluded by the nature of the epithet. It is remarkable that, among colours properly so called, Homer has none whatever, derived from the name of an object, that are light, unless it be in the case of the rose. The violet, the unknown κύανος, the φοίνιξ, the αἰθαλὴ, the ἁλιπόρφυρος, the πορφύρη, whatever else they may be, are all dark. And to this class οἴνοψ evidently belongs.

Wine is mentioned by Homer in nearly one hundred and forty places: in the majority of them it has an epithet: but only ten times is it described by an epithet of colour. Of these two are used for it, ἐρυθρὸς and μέλας; so that he plainly conceived of it as dark, but probably without a determinate hue. He more frequently calls it αἴθοψ: but this word, which fluctuates between the ideas of flame and smoke, either means tawny, or else refers to light, and not to colour, and bears the sense of sparkling.

Thus then οἴνοψ, like so many other words that we have gone through, vaguely indicates a dark hue, but cannot be referred to any one of the known principal colours.

12. The word μιλτοπάρηος has already been disposed of in connection with κυάνεος and φοίνιξ.

13. αἴθων is applied in Homer

a. to horses, as in Il. ii. 839; viii. 185.

b. to iron, as in Od. i. 184.

c. to a lion, as in Il. x. 23.

d. to copper utensils, as in Il. ix. 123; xxiv. 233.

e. to a bull, Il. xvi. 488; and to oxen, Od. xviii. 371.

f. to an eagle, Il. xv. 690.

With this word we may take its compound αἴθοψ. It is used

a. for wine, as we have seen.

b. for copper, Il. iv. 495 et alibi.

c. for smoke, Od. x. 152.

We have also the Αἰθίοπες, men of the tawny or swarthy countenance, beneath the Southern sun.

In what manner are we to find a common thread upon which to hang the colours of iron, copper, horses, lions, bulls, eagles, wine, swarthy men, and smoke? We must here again adopt the vague word ‘dark,’ a word of light and not of colour, for the purpose. But as the idea of αἴθω includes flame struggling with smoke, so there may be a flash of light upon the dark object. Ψολόεις, sooty or smutty, belongs to the same group with αἰθαλόεις and αἴθων, and need not, therefore, be separately discussed.

All the remainder of the words noted for examination are to be dealt with in two groups, each referable to a single idea: the first that of motion, and the second that of light.

14, 15. Among adjectives of motion, which have sometimes been improperly treated as adjectives of colour, are ἄργος and αἴολος. The former acquires an affinity to white, because it may signify an object which, from being rapidly moved, assumes in the light the appearance of whiteness845, and along with it may be placed its derivatives ἀργεννὸς, ἀργεστὴς, ἀργὴς, ἀργινόεις, ἀργιόδους, ἀργίπους, and ἀργικέραυνος. The latter, as in αἴολος ὄφις, αἴολος ἵππος, κορυθαίολος, πόδας αἴολος, seems to mean whatever from the same cause appears to shift its hues.

16. Of those adjectives of light in Homer, which have also been taken for adjectives of colour, the most important is γλαυκός. Its uses, however, are only as follows:

a. γλαυκὴ θάλασσα, Il. xvi. 34.

b. Γλαυκῶπις, the standing epithet, and even a proper name, of Minerva, Il. viii. 406.

c. γλαυκιόων; applied to the eye of a lion, when, reaching the height of his wrath, he makes his rush at the hunters, Il. xx. 172.

The last of these passages seems effectually to fix the sense of the term. The word γλαυκιόων describes a progression. The lion does not enhance the colour of his eye as he waxes angry. If, for example, γλαυκὸς can be taken as blue, it certainly does not become more blue: on the contrary, rage, when kindling fire in the eye, rather subdues its peculiar tint by flooding it with a vivid light. So the word seems clearly to refer to the brightening flash of the eye under the influence of passion. Of light and its movement, as also of sound, and of beautiful form, Homer’s conceptions are even more distinct and lively, than those of colour are, if not dull, yet at least indeterminate.

Γλαυκὸς is derived from γλαύσσω; and has for its root λάω, to see. The meaning of bright or flashing will suit the sea, as well as the epithet blue. And it suits Minerva far better. ‘Blue-eyed’ would be for her but a tame epithet. The luminous eye, on the contrary, entirely accords with her character, and belongs to a marked trait of those primitive traditions, which she appears to represent846.

17. Χάροπος is applied to the lion in Od. xi. 611; and it is the proper name of the father of Nireus in the Catalogue, while his mother is Ἀγλαΐη. From this latter use we see that χάροπος is not in Homer an epithet of colour; since he never describes the face by means of colour. Its etymology refers us to gladsomeness; and this is much more connected, in the Poet’s mind, with light than with colour.

18, 19. Besides these we have

σιγαλόεις, glossy, like σίαλος, or fat; and μαρμάρεος, applied a. to a web, Il. iii. 126.

b. to the Ægis, Il. xvii. 594.

c. to the sea, Il. xiv. 273.

d. to the rim of the Shield, Il. xviii. 480.

We have also the μαρμαρυγαὶ ποδῶν (Od. viii. 265), or twinkling of the feet in the dance: and the verb μαρμαίρω is applied to the eyes of Venus (Il. iii. 397), to arms (Il. xii. 195 et alibi), and to the golden palace of Neptune (Il. xiii. 22). The marble, from which the words are derived, was white: but that signification would not suit any of the uses of the words, except the web of Helen. The sense, that will suit them, is one derived from the idea of light, that of glittering or sparkling.

Lastly: ἠεροειδὴς (Il. v. 770; Od. xiii. 103) is so evidently an atmospheric epithet only, that it requires no detailed discussion. It is worthy of note, as it indicates the idea of atmospheric transparency.

Conflict of colours in the same object.

III. We might have attained to some nearly similar results, by taking the names of substantives in Homer, and considering the differences in the epithets of colour by which he describes them.

Thus, for example, iron is violet, grey, and αἴθων or tawny. There is a certain opposition between the first and second: a very marked one between the second and third. When considered as names of colour, they cannot be reconciled, but they may perhaps be made in some degree to harmonize by introducing the element of light. Iron is dark or tawny if in the shade: while under light it may appear grey.

Again, the dragon, or serpent, which is δάφοινος in Il. ii. 308, is also κυάνεος in Il. xi. 26; and is compared to the rainbow, which is πορφυρέη in Il. xvii. Δάφοινος, being applied to the lion’s hide in Il. x. 23, is essentially of a dull colour, but the rainbow is as essentially bright. Here, again, the only mode of harmonizing is by the supposition that Homer really regulates the use of those epithets according to light; and thus the same object may be dull and bright in different positions.

Again, κέραυνος is in composition white (ἀργικέραυνος): but it is also ψολοεὶς, smutty. In truth it is neither: but its near connection both with light and with darkness will admit of its being referred to either.

Great predominance of white and black.

IV. I have next to notice the vast predominance in Homer of the two simple opposites, white and black, which may be called, perhaps, the elemental forms of colour: white being the compound of the seven prismatic colours in their natural proportions, and black the absence, or simple negative, of them all.

The adjective μέλας, or ‘black,’ is used, in its different degrees, cases, and numbers, about one hundred and seventy times. Besides this, we have the verb μελαίνω, and several compounds from the adjective. It also forms a very frequent element in proper names.

The word λευκὸς, or ‘white,’ is used nearly sixty times: its compound λευκώλενος forty more, but almost all of these as the stock-epithet of Juno, which should not be taken into the account. We have also λευκαίνω, λεύκασπις, and some proper names. But this by no means exhausts Homer’s means of expressing whiteness. For that purpose he also uses μαρμάρεος, σιγαλόεις, perhaps πόλιος, and an extensive group of words having ἀργὸς for its centre. In all, whiteness, or something intended for it, may perhaps be thus expressed one hundred times or more.

Now assuming for the moment that adjectives of colour, in the prismatic sense of the word, are found in Homer, still it is remarkable how rarely they are found, in comparison with whiteness and blackness.

For example: except as a proper name, and as the stock-epithet of Menelaus, ξανθὸς is, I think, hardly found ten times in Homer. Ἰόεις, and its cognate words, come but six times: ῥοδόεις is an ἅπαξ λεγόμενον: μίλτος is only introduced in its compound twice; yet it is probably the best red in Homer: ἐρυθρὸς and ἐρυθαίνω come but thirteen times: πορφύρεος and the kindred words are found in all twenty-three times; but it has, I think, been shown that this word was wanting, with Homer, in the ingredient of specific colour, and only implied what was dark, whether brown, crimson, purple, or even black.

Omissions to specify colour.

V. It remains to complete this circle of evidence, by adducing cases where Homer’s omission to name colour, or to describe by means of it, is deserving of remark.

1. Homer’s similes are so rich in the use of all sensible imagery, that we might have expected to find colour a frequent and prominent ingredient in them. But it is not so. They turn chiefly, I think, upon the following ideas:

1. Motion.

2. Force.

3. Form.

4. Sound.

5. Symmetry.

6. Number.