II. The use of the same word to denote not only different hues or tints
of the same colour, but colours which, according to us, are essentially
different.
III. The description of the same object under epithets of colour
fundamentally disagreeing one from the other.
IV. The vast predominance of the most crude and elemental forms of
colour, black and white, over every other, and the decided tendency to
treat other colours as simply intermediate modes between these extremes.
V. The slight use of colour in Homer, as compared with other elements
of beauty, for the purpose of poetic effect, and its absence in certain
cases where we might confidently expect to find it.
Each of these topics will deserve a distinct notice.
~_Homeric adjectives of Colour._~
I. First, then, with respect to the paucity of his colours. We find, I
think, scarcely more than the following words which can with certainty
be described as adjectives of colour properly so called:
1. λευκός.
2. μέλας.
3. ξανθός.
4. ἐρυθρός.
5. πορφύρεος.
6. κυάνεος.
7. φοίνιξ.
8. πόλιος.
There are other words which are taken from objects that have colour,
and to most of which I shall hereafter refer: but which can hardly, in
consistency with the whole evidence from the text of Homer, be classed
as adjectives of definite colour.
Now we must at once be struck with the poverty of the list which
has just been given, upon comparing it with our own list of primary
colours, which has been determined for us by Nature, and which is as
follows:
1. Red.
2. Orange.
3. Yellow.
4. Green.
5. Blue.
6. Indigo.
7. Violet.