_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.