Chapter XVII: Part 17

1. ξανθὸς is applied by Homer to the following objects:

_a._ horses, ἵππων ξανθὰ κάρηνα, Il. ix. 407.

_b._ hair of men, ξανθὸς Μενέλαος, _passim_: Achilles, Il. i. 197.

_c._ hair of women, ξανθὴ Ἀγαμήδη, Il. xi. 739; Δημήτηρ, Il. v. 500.

2. ἐρυθρὸς is evidently the same word with the Latin _ruber_, and with our own ‘ruddy,’ as well as probably the German _roth_.

It is used by Homer for

_a._ Copper in Il. ix. 365.
_b._ Nectar, Il. xix. 38.
_c._ Wine, Od. v. 93.
_d._ Blood: in ἐρυθαίνω, Il. x. 484.

3. πορφύρεος again is the Latin _purpura_, and our ‘purple,’ as well as our ‘porphyry.’ In the uses of this word we shall find for the first time a startling amount of obvious discrepancy: and it will require to be considered in the proper place, whether this discrepancy is to be referred to a bold exercise of the Poet’s art, or to an undeveloped knowledge and a consequently defective standard of colour.

The word πορφύρεος is employed as follows for objects of sense:

_a._ Blood, Il. xvii. 361.

_b._ Dark cloud, ibid. 551.

_c._ Wave of a river when disturbed, Il. xxi. 326.

_d._ Wave of the sea, Il. i. 482; and the disturbed sea, Il. xvi. 391.

_e._ The ball with which the Phæacian dancers played, Od. viii. 373.

_f._ Garments, as Il. viii. 221; Od. iv. 115.

_g._ Carpets, as Od. xxi. 151; Il. xxiv. 645.

_h._ The rainbow, Il. xvii. 547.

_i._ Metaphorically it is applied to Death, Il. v. 83: and, as it would appear, to bloody death only.

Further, the verb πορφύρω is applied

_a._ to the sea darkening, Il. xiv. 16.
_b._ to the mind brooding, Il. xx. 551.

Again, the compound ἁλιπόρφυρος is applied

_a._ to wool, Od. vi. 53.
_b._ to garments woven of it, Od. xiii. 108.

In this epithet we have the additional idea of the sea introduced; and it literally means ‘sea-purple.’ But I postpone any remark with respect to Homer’s particular intention in the use of the word, until we come to the epithets derived from ἴον, a violet.

Three forms of colour at least seem to be comprehended under this group of words;

1. The redness of blood.

2. The purple proper, as of the sea in Il. i. 482. To this also probably belongs the rainbow, of whose seven colours three may be said to belong to the family of blue: and which is termed blue by Shakespeare.

3. The grey and leaden colour of a dark cloud when about to burst in storm, and of a river when disturbed.

We shall hereafter see reason to suppose that the word may also and often mean what is tawny or brown.

~_Of κύανος and κυάνεος._~

4. The word κυάνεος is very important in this inquiry; and unfortunately it is not less obscure.

It at once throws us back on the prior question, what was κύανος? But this question remains almost wholly undetermined[842]; so that we must follow, as well as we can, the Homeric applications of the word itself, together with its adjective and its compounds. These are very numerous. First we have the substantive κύανος introduced in three places: in each of which it evidently belongs to a combination of colours as well as of substances.

[842] See note at the end of the Section.

_a._ Once it is κύανος simply. The interior wall of the hall of Alcinous is covered with sheets of copper[843]; and round the top is a θριγκὸς or fringe of κύανος. Od. vii. 87.

[843] Ibid.

_b._ Twice it is μέλας κύανος. On the breast-plate of Agamemnon there are twenty stripes or layers of tin, twelve of gold, and ten μέλανος κυάνοιο. Il. xi. 24, Also;

_c._ Upon his shield there were ten rounds of copper; and then, apparently on the face of the shield within these, twenty white bosses (ὄμφαλοι λευκοὶ) made of tin, if such be the meaning of κασσίτερος: in the centre of all, there was one boss μέλανος κυάνοιο. Il. xi. 35.

Passing now to κυάνεος, we come next to three passages where it may be questioned whether they describe colour only, or substance only, or both.

_d._ Upon the breastplate of Agamemnon, which has ten layers of black κύανος, there are on either side three κυάνεοι δράκοντες (Il. xi. 26). These are compared to the rainbow, which, as we have already seen, is described elsewhere as πορφυρεή.

_e._ On the silver-plated belt of Agamemnon there is a κυάνεος δράκων. Il. xi. 38, 9.

_f._ Around the golden vineyard on the shield of Achilles, with its silver stakes, there is a fence of κασσίτερος and a trench (κάπετος) described as κυανέη. Il. xviii. 564.

The other applications at once appear to have reference to colour only.

_g._ To the eyebrows of Jupiter and Juno. Il. i. 528. xv. 102. xvii. 209.

_h._ To a dark cloud of vapour; but not to a storm-cloud. Il. xxiii. 188. v. 345. xx. 418.

_i._ To the hair of Hector, Il. xxii. 402; and to the beard of Ulysses, when he is restored to beauty by Minerva. Od. xvi. 176. With this we may compare the hyacinthine hair of Ulysses in Od. vi. 231.

_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 θεάων
κυάνεον· 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 simpleton[844] (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).

[844] The celebrated Hunter noticed that Homer had made Dolon an only son with five sisters, as a proof of the Poet’s sagacity in observation: having himself found, that youths under such circumstances are generally more or less effeminate. I owe this information to one of the most distinguished living members of the profession, which Hunter himself adorned. It was also a favourite remark, I believe, with Mr. Rogers.

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 whiteness[845], 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.

[845] See Achæis, or Ethnology, p. 383.

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 represent[846].

[846] See Olympus, sect. ii. p. 53. Welcker (_Griechische Götterlehre_, vi. 63, p. 300) treats the name Ἀθήνη as immediately akin to αἰθὴρ and the idea of light.

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.
7. Light and Darkness.
8. Very rarely, upon Colour.

In the greater part of them colour is not even mentioned. I have seen the similes of the poems reckoned at two hundred: and I have found it difficult to note more than three which turn upon colour, even when it is vaguely conceived.

The first is the blood of Menelaus, compared to a crimson dye, on the cheek-piece of a horse, Il. iv. 141.

The second, the meditations of Nestor, likened to the darkening of the sea before a storm, Il. xiv. 16-22.

Thirdly, the cloud in which Minerva is wrapped is compared to the rainbow, Il. xvii. 547-52.

Of these the second is very indefinite: the idea of the first, as we have seen, was inaccurately and loosely conceived: and the third is one of the most striking proofs of the want of a close discrimination of colours in Homer.

Yet here again we may find life and beauty in the passage, if only we construe it of a cloud illuminated by the rays falling on it. Indeed, generally the element of light brings us back to Homer’s usual definiteness, when his use of colour makes him obscure.

2. Again, in the numerous and very exact epithets by which the Poet has described the form and appearance of different countries, we scarcely find any epithet of colour. Out of about sixty of these epithets in the Greek Catalogue, there are but three that refer to colour, and these all mention whiteness only (ἀργινόεις, Il. ii. 647, 656, and λευκός, ibid. 735).

~_In the case of the horse._~

3. It is most singular that, though Homer so loved the horse that he is never weary of using him with his whole heart for the purposes of poetry, yet in all his animated and beautiful descriptions of this animal, colour should be so little prominent. It is said, indeed, that Homer tells us the horses of Eumelus corresponded in colour (ὅτριχες Il. ii. 765); but what the colour was we know not; and the question may also be raised, whether the epithet employed does not more properly indicate similarity in the fineness of their coat. Perhaps the only cases, where colour is distinctly assigned to horses, are the following two:

First, that of the horses of Rhesus. There the colour is the negative one of whiteness, which seems, with its counterpart blackness, to have been so much more present to the mind of Homer than any intermediate colour. These horses were (Il. x. 437) λευκότεροι χιόνος. And afterwards Nestor in a noble line declares them like, not to anything having colour, but to the rays of the sun (Il. x. 547). Thus reappears the old identification in Homer’s mind of light and colour. There is, however, another reason to which it may be suspected that we owe the mention of colour in this instance: namely, that the whiteness is intended to make them visible in the gloom, and thus to assist the capture by night.

The second case is, that of the horse of Diomed in the chariot-race. Here Idomeneus mentions the bay or chestnut colour (Il. xxiii. 454) with the white mark, but then it is the only means of identifying the master, which is essential to his purpose in the speech. Apart from these special reasons, Homer speaks indeed twice of the ξανθὰ κάρηνα of horses; this, however, is of horses in the abstract. Nestor (Il. xi. 680) mentions a set of one hundred and fifty mares all with colour, that is to say, ξανθαί: a new proof of the lax use of the word, as they would hardly be all alike.

Among the four horses of Hector (Il. viii. 185), the two of the Atreidæ (Il. xxiii. 295), and the three of Achilles (xvi. 475) we find only the name Xanthus which is clearly referable to colour: and this is in truth the only colour which, besides white, he ever gives to his horses. For it is more probable that by the name Βάλιος he meant to refer to the effect of light from rapidity of motion: while Αἴθη in Il. xxiii. 409, Αἴθων and Λάμπος (Il. viii. 485) may signify brightness or darkness indeed, but neither of these is colour.

Again, in the magnificent simile of the στάτος ἵππος there is no colour. The three thousand horses of Erichthonius (Il. x. 221) have no colour. The horses of Diomed (Il. v. 257) have none. Nor have the heaven-born horses of Tros, nor those which Anchises bred from them (Il. v. 265. _et seqq._). None of the teams for the race in Il. xxiii. have colour. Lastly; Homer abounds in characteristic and set epithets for horses, such as ὠκὺς, ὠκύπους, ποδώκης, μώνυξ, ἐριαύχην, ἀερσίπους, ἐΰσκαρθμος, ὑψήχης, καλλίθριξ, ταχὺς, and others; but none of them are taken from colour.

Yet colour is in horses a thing so prominent that it seems, wherever they are at all individualized, almost to force itself into the description. Let us take two examples allied in their beauty, although separated in birth by twenty-two hundred years. The first is from Euripides, where the Chorus in _Iphigenia in Aulide_ describes the Grecian host before embarcation[847].

[847] Eurip. Iph. in Aul. 213-22.

ὁ δὲ διφρηλάτας βοᾶτ’
Εὔμηλος Φερητιάδας,
ᾧ καλλίστους εἰδόμαν
χρυσοδαιδάλτους στομίοισι πώλους
κέντρῳ θεινομένους, τοὺς μὲν μέσ-
σους ζυγίους, λευκοστίκτῳ τριχὶ
βαλιοὺς, τοὺς δ’ ἐξὼ σειραφόρους,
ἀντήρεις καμπαῖσι δρόμων
πυῤῥότριχας, μονόχαλα δ’ ὑπὸ σφυρὰ
ποικιλοδέρμονας.

The second, also eminently beautiful, is from Macaulay, where in the ‘Battle of the Lake Regillus’, after the deadly conflict of Mamilius and Herminius, he describes what then happened to their steeds.

Fast, fast, with heels wild spurning,
The _dark-grey_ charger fled;
He burst through ranks of fighting men,
He sprang o’er heaps of dead....

But like a graven image
_Black_ Auster kept his place,
And ever wistfully he looked
Into his master’s face.

How characteristically the element of colour enters into these admirable descriptions.

4. It is not, however, the case of the horse alone, on which an argument may be founded. Homer abounds with notices of other animals, both domesticated and wild. We have oxen, dogs, goats, hogs, and sheep. None of his stock epithets for them are drawn from colour; and we have seen that by his wine-coloured oxen, and his violet-coloured sheep, he, in all likelihood, means no more than dark or tawny. His epithets for wild animals are of the same character when they occur, and similarly depend on the scale of degrees between light and darkness, not upon colour. Once he mentions a white goose (Od. xv. 161); but it is borne on high in the talons of an eagle, and the object evidently is to create a clear visual image.

5. I would not lay overmuch stress on the fact, that Homer never refers to colour in connection with the human frame, unless as regards the hair, which is either ξανθὸς or κυάνεος: expressions which, as we shall see, are apparent exceptions, and not real ones. The olive hue of the Mediterranean latitudes makes colour a less prominent element in human beauty for a Greek climate, than it is for ours. Still its almost entire exclusion is an element in the case. One instance that I have noticed, which introduces it, adds to the general mass of testimony. When Minerva (Od. xvi. 175) restores the beauty of Ulysses, the expression is ἂψ δὲ μελαγχροιὴς γένετο. Now this certainly does not mean that his flesh became black again. It can only signify that he resumed the olive tint, which was associated with personal vigour and beauty. So that even the μέλας of Homer means dark, and is indefinite: as might indeed be shown by many other instances.

6. Lastly, it seems to deserve remark, that there is not one single epithet of Iris taken from colour. She is once, and only once, χρυσόπτερος (Il. viii. 398); but this is in virtue of her office, and has no relation to the rainbow; as, indeed, gold with Homer always belongs to light rather than to colour. All her other epithets, without exception, are taken from motion only. She is swift (ὠκέα and τάχεια), swift of foot (πόδας ὠκέα), swift as the wind (ποδήνεμος), storm-footed (ἀελλόπους[848]), but from colour she derives no part whatever of her Homeric costume. Now though the chain of traditions which identified Iris with the rainbow was broken[849], yet the traces of it were not wholly lost. For Homer treated the rainbow, physically, as a prophet of storm (Il. xvii. 548): and again, we find that she was still tempest-footed. This epithet can only be derived from her original relation to the rainbow. It is therefore highly instructive, that none of her traits of colour should have been preserved.

[848] Il. xviii. 409. xxiv. 159.

[849] See Olympus, sect. ii. p. 157.

Lastly, let us take the case of the sky, or the heavens. Here Homer had before him the most perfect example of blue. Yet he never once so describes the sky. His οὐρανὸς is starry (Il. i. 317), or broad (Il. iii. 364), or great (Il. i. 497), or iron (Od. xv. 328), or copper (Od. iii. 2. Il. xvii. 425); but it is never blue. This is an important piece of negative testimony.

We have now before us a pretty large, though I by no means venture to suppose it a complete, collection of the facts of the case.

~_Causes of this peculiar treatment._~

I submit that they warrant the two following propositions:

1. That Homer’s perceptions of the prismatic colours, or colours of the rainbow, which depend on the decomposition of light by refraction, and _a fortiori_ of their compounds, were, as a general rule, vague and indeterminate.

2. That we must therefore seek another basis for his system of colour.

But a few words may be permitted on the cause which has led to his treatment of the subject in a manner so different from that of the moderns.

Are we justified in referring it to his reputed blindness?

Are we to suppose a defect in his organization, or in that of his countrymen?

Or are we to reject altogether the idea of defect, and to treat his use of colour as one conceived in the spirit which, with even the most perfect knowledge, would properly belong to his art?

The mere tradition of Homer’s blindness is hardly relevant. The presumption of it drawn from the poems, because they make Demodocus blind, is inappreciably minute. The testimony of the Hymn to Apollo is ancient[850]; but, as his blindness (if he really was blind) allowed of the most vivid conceptions of light, it will not account for defectiveness in his conceptions of colour. The vigorous apprehension and accurate description of sensible objects in the poems demonstrate, that we cannot seek in this hypothesis for an explanation of what may be either singular, crude, or irregular.

[850] Hymn. ad Apoll. v. 172.

Neither can we resort to the supposition of anything, that is to be properly called a defect in his organization; when we bear in mind his intense feeling for form, and when we observe his effective and powerful handling of the ideas of light and dark.

~_License of Poetry as to colour._~

Our answer to the third question must also, I think, be in the negative. It is true, indeed, that much of merely literal discrepancy as to colour might be understood to appertain to the license of poetry. There is high poetical effect in what may be called straining epithets of colour. But it seems essential to that effect,

(1.) That the straining should be the exception, and not the rule.

(2.) That there should be a fixed standard of the colour itself, so that the departures from it may be measured. Otherwise the result is not license, but confusion. Shakespeare with high effect says[851],

[851] Macbeth ii. 3.

Here lay Duncan,
His silver skin laced with his golden blood.

Here the idea is not that silver is of the same colour as skin, nor gold as blood; but that the relation of colour between silver and gold may be compared with that between skin and blood: the skin throws the blood into relief, as a ground of silver would throw out a projection of gold. In license of this kind we can always trace both a rule and an aim. The rule is relaxed only for the particular occasion. The effect produced is that of tenderness, dignity, and purity. Had Shakespeare been describing the horrible carnage of a battlefield, he probably would have spoken of black or foul gore instead of using a brightening figure.

Now this purpose is not traceable in Homer’s use of certain words, if we are required to treat them as adjectives of colour. There is no Poet, whose _rationale_ is commonly more accessible; but these cases, upon such a principle, do not admit of a _rationale_ at all.

Take for instance his use of the rainbow. It is (1) πορφυρέη, and (2) like a δράκων, which is κυάνεος. Of these, the first may be construed dark with a hue of crimson; the second, dark with a hue of deep blue or indigo. Surely we have here, viewing it as a whole, a most inadequate treatment of the colours of the rainbow. Shakespeare indeed says[852],

[852] Troilus and Cressida, i. 3, _sub_ fin.

His crest, that prouder than blue Iris bends;

and again, in the Tempest, Ceres addresses Iris thus[853];

[853] Tempest, iv. 1. The rainbow is mentioned as of many colours, in Merry Wives of Windsor, iv. 5, Winter’s Tale, iv. 3, and King John, iv. 2.

And with each end of thy blue bow dost crown
My bosky acres....

But (1) blue differs from πορφύρεος, which is essentially dark, and is not blue. (2) Blue, taken largely, represents three of the seven prismatic colours: i. e. indigo and purple along with itself. (3) In the last quoted passage, Iris is also called ‘many-coloured messenger,’ and with ‘saffron wings.’ How different an effect do these words give, as they form a whole, from that of the simile in Il. xvii. In what manner then are we to understand Homer? I answer, in the way of metaphor; and with reference to light and dark, not to prismatic colour. The δράκοντες on the buckler and belt are dark and terrible: so is the storm of which Iris is the type, and it is in viewing the rainbow as a type of what is awful, that we are to find the reason of Homer’s simply treating it as dark, and not as a series and system of colours. Perhaps we ought not to overlook the possibility that Homer may also mean to compare the shifting hues of the serpent with the varied appearance of the rainbow.

Again, let us take his use of μελαγχροίης. Now the question is, did Homer mean by this simply to express darkness, that is to say was _dark_ his idea of μέλας, or did he, with the specific idea of black in his mind, use the term which denoted it poetically for the olive complexion of Ulysses? Surely the former: for the latter use of it would have been bad. It would have been straining the figure in the wrong direction. For blackness would be a fitting trope only where the object was to describe something awful or repulsive.

But beauty of form in Homer always leans to light hues and not to dark ones, whence the Greeks are ξανθοὶ, and the Trojan Hector, though beautiful, is κυάνεος only. Therefore it was not Homer’s object to give an enhanced idea of darkness in the tints of Ulysses. And yet, if μέλας for him meant specifically black, then μελαγχροίης was the height of exaggeration in the wrong sense. But if by μέλας he only understood dark, that was a fair description of the olive tint, as compared with the withered and shrivelled skin of old age.

We have other proofs from the poems that Homer conceived of μέλας as dark, and not specifically as black. The former idea accords best with his calling earth μέλας, when it is fresh behind the plough (Il. xviii. 548): and his calling blood μέλας, not stagnant gore, but blood fresh as it comes spurting from the wound (Il. i. 303),

αἶψά τοι αἷμα κελαινὸν ἐρωήσει περὶ δουρί·

and again, the fresh blood of Venus herself: μελαίνετο δὲ χρόα καλόν (Il. v. 354). It would be bad poetry to call the blood of Venus _black_, for the same reasons which make it good poetry in Shakespeare to call the blood of Duncan golden. So the μέλας πόντος of Il. xxiv. 79 is evidently no more than dark; though in vii. 64 we may properly say the sea blackens.

So again with wine-coloured oxen, smutty thunder-bolts, violet-coloured sheep, and many more, it is surely conclusive against taking them for descriptions of prismatic colours or their compounds, that they would be bad descriptions in their several kinds.

~_Homer’s means of training in colour._~

We must then seek for the basis of Homer’s system with respect to colour in something outside our own. And it may prepare us the more readily to acknowledge such a basis elsewhere, if we bear in mind, that many of the great elements and sources of colour for us presented themselves differently to him. The olive hue of the skin kept down the play of white and red. The hair tended much more uniformly, than with us, to darkness. The sense of colour was less exercised by the culture of flowers. The sun sooner changed the spring-greens of the earth into brown. Glass, one of our instruments of instruction, did not exist. The rainbow would much more rarely meet the view. The art of painting was wholly, and that of dyeing was almost, unknown; and we may estimate the importance of this element of the case by recollecting how much, with the advance of chemistry, the taste of this country in colour has improved within the last twenty years. The artificial colours, with which the human eye was conversant, were chiefly the ill-defined, and anything but full-bodied, tints of metals. The materials, therefore, for a system of colour did not offer themselves to Homer’s vision as they do to ours. Particular colours were indeed exhibited in rare beauty, as the blue of the sea and of the sky. Yet these colours were, so to speak, isolated fragments; and, not entering into a general scheme, they were apparently not conceived with the precision necessary to master them. It seems easy to comprehend that the eye may require a familiarity with an ordered system of colours, as the condition of its being able closely to appreciate any one among them.

I conclude, then, that the organ of colour and its impressions were but partially developed among the Greeks of the heroic age.

In lieu of this, Homer seems to have had, firstly some crude conceptions of colour derived from the elements; secondly and principally, a system in lieu of colour, founded upon light and upon darkness, its opposite or negative. We have seen that the μέλας of Homer, which is applied to fine olive tints in the skin, and which joins hands with κυάνεος and πορφύρεος, means dark, the absence of light. On the other hand, the basis of whiteness is clearly indicated to us in the etymology of λευκὸς, which is the same as that of λεύσσω to see, and of λύκη light in λυκαβὰς the year, the walk or course of light; as well as in the cognate words, which appear to have their root in the Sanscrit _loch_, from whence _lochan_, an eye[854].

[854] Pritchard’s Celtic Nations, p. 219.

~_His system one of light and dark._~

As a general proposition, then, I should say that the Homeric colours are really the modes and forms of light[855], and of its opposite or rather negative, darkness: partially affected perhaps by ideas drawn from the metals, like the ruddiness of copper, or the sombre and dead blue of κύανος, whatever the substance may have been; and here and there with an inceptive effort, as it were, to get hold of other ideas of colour.

[855] Vid. Göthe, _Geschichte der Farbenlehre_, Works, vol. 53, p. 21. (Stuttgart, 1833.)

Under the application of this principle, I believe that all, or nearly all, the Homeric words will fall into their places: and that we shall find that the Poet used them, from his own standing-ground, with great vigour and effect. We can now see why λευκὸς and μέλας with their kindred words have such an immense predominance: though white and black are the limiting ratios of colour, rather than colour itself.

Of the transparent and opaque, or _chiaroscuro_, we cannot expect to hear from Homer: yet, as has been observed, a rudiment of it may be contained in the highly poetical ἠεροειδὲς of the cave or sea; and again in the δνοφερὴ νὺξ (Od. xiii. 269), since νέφος is the basis of the epithet.

When we speak of colour proper, we speak of an effect which is produced by the decomposition of light, and which, so long as the eye can discharge its function, is complete, whatever the quantity, or the incidence, of light upon the object said to have colour may happen to be.

When we speak of light, shade, and darkness, we refer to the quantity of light, not decomposed, which falls upon that object, and to the mode of its incidence.