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.
Of light, shadow, and darkness thus regarded, Homer had lively and
most poetical conceptions. This description of objects by light and its
absence tax his materials to the uttermost. His iron-grey, his ruddy,
his starry heaven, are so many modes of light. His wine-coloured oxen
and sea, his violet sheep, his things tawny, purple, sooty, and the
rest, give us in fact a rich vocabulary of words for describing what
is dark so far as it has colour, but what also varies between dull and
bright, according to the quantity of light playing upon it. Here (for
example) is the link between his αἴθοψ κάπνος and his αἴθοψ οἶνος.
As these words all follow in the train, so to speak, of μέλας, even so
λευκὸς is attended by its own family, all falling under the meaning of
the English adjective _light_. On the one hand χλωρὸς and πόλιος; on
the other μαρμάρεος, ἀργὸς, and σιγαλόεις, all mean _light_; but the
first two are dull, and represent the twilight of colour, or debateable
ground between it and its negative, while the last three are bright and
glistering.
Nothing can be more poetical than Homer’s ideas of dark and light. It
was a redundancy of life in these ideas, that made him associate light
with motion; as in those fine lines (Il. ii. 437),
ὣς τῶν ἐρχομένων ἀπὸ χαλκοῦ θεσπεσίοιο
αἴγλη παμφανόωσα δι’ αἰθέρος οὐρανὸν ἷκεν.
And, again, in the Arming of Achilles (Il. xix. 362),
αἴγλη δ’ οὐρανὸν ἷκε, γέλασσε δὲ πᾶσα περὶ χθών.
So, on the other hand, the idea of darkness went to animate
metaphysical conceptions, as in black fate, black death, black clouds
of death, black pains (Il. ii. 859, 834. xvi. 350. iv. 117).
Naturalists tell us, that there exist kinds of creatures respecting
which it is known, that their organs are sensitive to light and
darkness, but with no perception whatever either of colour or of
form[856]. So far as respects form, Homer perceived keenly such forms
as were beautiful: but of mere geometrical form he may have had very
indistinct ideas, if we are to judge from his epithets for the form of
a shield. The parallel is nearer in the case of colour; for even his
perceptions were as yet undigested; as if they were novel, not aided by
tradition, acquired very much by himself, and fixed as yet neither by
custom nor nomenclature.
[856] Wilson’s Five Gateways of Knowledge, p. 4.
From the remains which have reached us of the colours of the ancients,
it has been found practicable to treat of them in precise detail[857].
But, in examining the question from the works of Homer, we must bear
in mind, first, their very early date, and, secondly, the likelihood
that heroic Greece may probably have been far behind some countries of
the east in the use and in the idea of colour, which has always had a
privileged home there.
[857] See, for instance, ‘Ancient and Modern Colours, by William
Linton.’ London 1852.
~_Colour in the later Greek language._~
The tendency, however, to a mixture of the two questions of light and
colour appears to be traceable more or less in the popular language,
and likewise in the philosophy, of the later Greeks.
In the classical period, the hues of the eye were divided, as μέλας the
darkest, χάροπος the intermediate, and γλαυκὸς the lightest.
The word πράσινος, leek-green, appears to be quite adequate to the
expression of the colour. It is used by Aristotle; but I do not know
that it is found in the poets or writers of the best age. For the
classical Greek the idea of greenness is expressed by χλωρὸς, as
far as it is expressed at all. Now this word seems inadequate on two
grounds. First, its predominant idea is that of ‘fresh’ or ‘recent;’
which is but accidentally, and not invariably, the property of those
objects in nature that are green.
When we find the word χλωρὸς applied alike to objects of a green
colour, and to others that have no colour, (or else not in respect of
their colour,) but yet which are fresh or newly sprung, we are led to
conclude that it was for freshness, and not for greenness, that the
word was generally used. This idea is confirmed by two circumstances.
First, that when χλωρὸς does signify colour, as in the case of
paleness, (where it cannot mean what is fresh,) it signifies the most
indefinite and feeble colour, little more indeed than a negative.
The meaning of χλωρὸν δεός is probably ashy-pale fear. In the green of
the olive we see the point of connection between this use of the term
on the one hand, and natural verdure on the other. So that the image of
the colour green, to the Greeks, was neither lively and bright on the
one hand, nor was it strong and deep on the other.
The second circumstance is this: that the word χλωρὸς is applied by the
later Greeks to objects that have a colour, but a colour which is _not_
green: and this by authors who had the full use of sight. Thus, in
Euripides, (Hecuba 124,) we have αἵματι χλωρῷ for blood freshly shed.
It seems plain that, when the epithet could be thus used, colour could
only be very carelessly and faintly conceived in the minds either of
those who used the expression, or of those to whom it was addressed.
I shall not open the general subject of the treatment of colour by the
later Greeks, or by the Latin poets. But that it continued to be both
faint and indefinite down to a very late period, and in a degree which
would now be deemed very surprising, we may judge both from the general
tenour of the Æneid, and from the remarkable verse of Albinovanus, an
Augustan poet, which applied the epithet ‘purpureus’ to snow;
Brachia purpureâ candidiora nive.
Neither do I enter into the question, whether the shadows of white
may afford any ground for this epithet: because an answer, drawn from
the secrets as it were of science or art, could not avail for the
interpretation of the works of a poet, who must describe for the common
eye.
So we may note the ‘cervix rosea’ of Horace[858], and of Virgil[859].
[858] Hor. Od. I. 13. 2.
[859] Virg. Æn. i. 402.
~_Greek philosophy of colour._~
Such examination as I have been able to make would lead me to suppose
whatever of this kind was crude or defective in the common ideas of
Greece was not without points of correspondence in its philosophy.
The treatise Περὶ χρωμάτων, popularly ascribed to Aristotle, would
appear to belong to some other author. It, however, in conformity with
Greek ideas[860], bases the system of colour not, as we do, upon the
prismatic decomposition of light, but upon the four elements; of which
it declares air, water, and even earth when dry, to be white, fire
to be ξανθὸς or yellow; from the mixtures of these arise all other
colours, and σκότος, or black, is the absence of light.
[860] Vid. Göthe, _Farbenlehre_, Works, vol. 53. p. 23.
Dr. Prantl, a recent editor of this Treatise, has, in a learned Essay
of his own, gathered together the systems of the various Greek writers
upon colour; and especially that of Aristotle, from the testimony
afforded by his _Meteorologica_ and other works. It exhibits a curious
combination of the aim at scientific exactness, with the want of the
physical knowledge which is, in such matters, its necessary basis. Its
leading ideas appear to be as follows.
If we pass by the mere metaphysical portion of the subject, the basis
of colour is laid theoretically in transparency and motion. With the
idea of whiteness are associated dryness and heat; and with blackness
their counterparts, wet and cold[861]. The air is white, fire the
highest form of white; water is black[862], earth the highest negation
of colour, and blackest of all. All other colours are treated as
intermediate between white and black[863]. An analogy prevails between
the intervals of the principal colours, and those of sound, taste
(χυμὸς), and other sensible objects. There are seven colours[864]:
namely,
[861] Prantl’s Aristoteles über die Farben, pp. 101, 3.
[862] Ibid. pp. 104, 6.
[863] Ibid. p. 109. Ar. Metaph. I. 7. 1057 a. 23.
[864] Ibid. p. 116. Ar. de Sens. 4. 442 a. 12.
1. μέλαν black.
2. ξανθὸν gold.
3. λευκὸν white.
4. φοινικοῦν red.
5. ἁλουργὸν violet.
6. πράσινον green.
7. κυανοῦν blue.
The φαιὸν or grey is a mode of black (μέλαν τι); and the ξανθὸν is
ingeniously described as having the same relation to light, which
richness (λιπαρὸν) has to sweetness (γλυκύ). Red, φοινικοῦν or
πορφυροῦν, is light seen through black. This is the most positive
colour after ξανθόν; then comes green, and then (ἁλουργὸν) violet[865].
He proceeds, ἔτι δὲ τὸ πλεῖον οὔκετι φαίνεται; meaning, I suppose, that
the κυανοῦν (the same thing is said by Prantl of ὄρφνιον, which he
translates brown) is so closely akin to the negative, or blackness, as
to be indistinguishable from it. Thus Aristotle appears to treat grey
as outside his scale altogether; he gives πορφυροῦν sometimes to red
and sometimes to blue[866]; and ὄρφνιον or brown is wholly omitted.
His order likewise varies: for, in different passages, ἁλουργὸν and
πράσινον change places.
[865] Ibid. p. 118. Met. III. 4. 374 b. 31.
[866] Comp. Met. I. 5. 342 b. 4. with III. 4. 374 a. 27.
~_Nature of our advantage over Homer._~
This condition of the philosophy of colour, so many centuries after
Homer, and in the mind of such a man as Aristotle, may assist in
explaining to us the undeveloped state of Homer’s perceptions in this
particular department.
There appears to be a remarkable contrast between such undigested
ideas, and the solidity, truth, and firmness of the remains of colour
that have come down to us from the ancients. The explanation, I
suppose, is, that those, who had to make practical use of colour, did
not wait for the construction of a philosophy, but added to their
apparatus from time to time all substances which, having come within
their knowledge, were found to produce results satisfactory and
improving to the eye. And even so Homer, though his organ was little
trained in the discrimination of colours, and though he founded himself
mainly upon mere modifications of light apart from its decomposition,
yet has made very bold and effective use of these limited materials.
His figures in no case jar, while they never fail to strike. Nor are
we to suppose that we see in this department an exception to that
comparative profusion of power which marked his endowments in general,
and that he bore, in the particular point, a crippled nature; but
rather we are to learn that the perceptions so easy and familiar to
us are the results of a slow traditionary growth in knowledge and in
the training of the human organ, which commenced long before we took
our place in the succession of mankind. We exemplify, even in this
apparently simple matter, the old proverbial saying: ‘The dwarf sees
further than the giant, for he is lifted on the giant’s shoulders.’
_Note on the meaning of κύανος and χαλκός._
The first impression from the Homeric text is likely to be that
κύανος is a metal. For the substantive is mentioned but thrice in
Homer; and always in immediate connection with metals.
1. Il. xi. 24. Upon the buckler of Agamemnon there are, with twelve
οἶμοι, folds, rims, or plies, of gold, and twenty of tin, ten of
κύανος (μέλανος κυάνοιο).
2. Il. xi. 34. On the shield of the king, there were twenty white
bosses of tin, and, in the middle, one of κύανος (μέλανος κυάνοιο).
3. Od. vii. 86. The walls of the palace of Alcinous were coated with
χαλκὸς within, and round about them there was a cornice or fringe
(θριγκὸς) of κύανος.
There is no doubt that, in later Greek at least, the word acquired
other significations: such as _lapis lazuli_, the blue cornflower,
the rockbird (also as being blue), and, lastly, a blue dye or
lacquer[867]. But, moreover, it seems impossible to identify the
κύανος of Homer with any metal in particular.
[867] Liddell and Scott _in voc._ Millin, Minéralogie Homérique, p.
149.
Some have asserted the κύανος of Homer to be steel[868]. But to this
there seem to be conclusive objections. It appears very doubtful,
whether the Greeks were acquainted with the process of making steel
in masses by the immersion of iron in water. The English translation
of Beckmann’s History of Inventions ascribes the knowledge of the
process to Homer; but apparently in error[869]. There is no allusion
whatever to it: for it is not at all implied by the elementary
process of the manufacture of a tool in Od ix. 391-3. It was only
by fire that iron could be made malleable at all: and no doubt it
was known that by its immersion in water hardness was restored or
increased (τὸ γὰρ αὖτε σιδήρου γε κράτος ἐστίν). But we have no
trace either of the repetition of the process on the same piece of
metal, or of its application to unmanufactured iron, or of a new
denomination for iron when thus heated and cooled. On the contrary,
in this passage the metal when fully hardened is still declared to be
σίδηρος: and we have nowhere in Homer any trace of a relation between
κύανος and σίδηρος, except the merely negative one, that neither of
them is cast into the furnace for making the Shield of Achilles.
[868] Friedreich, Realien, § 21. p. 86.
[869] Vol. ii. p. 325.
Again, the hardness of iron was such as apparently met all their
wishes, and almost of itself constituted a difficulty. Hence it is
used along with stones as a symbol of hardness; ἐπεὶ οὔ σφι λίθος
χρὼς ἠὲ σίδηρος[870]. Again, we do not find it worked up with other
metals; for example, on the buckler or shield of Agamemnon. As we
have seen, it is not used by Vulcan in making the shield of Achilles.
The god casts into the fire gold and silver, copper and tin; lead
being apparently excluded as too soft, and iron as too hard for
working in masses with the other metals. But the idea of hardness
is never associated with κύανος; and, if it had been hard like
steel, certainly it would not have been a suitable material for the
intricate forms of dragons.
[870] Il. iv. 510.
Again, the adjective κυάνεος means in colour what is blue and what
is deep; and by no means corresponds with the ordinary colour of
steel. All this, besides the strength of the negative evidence, seems
inconsistent with the idea that κύανος can have been steel.
The Compiler of the Index to Eustathius makes κύανος (_in voc._)
simply a dark metal. But Millin argues that κύανος without an epithet
is tin, and that with the epithet μέλας it is lead. He observes that
Pliny[871] appears to call tin by the name of _plumbum_ simply, and
lead by the name of _plumbum nigrum_: so that the double use of
κύανος and κασσίτερος for tin would be like that of _plumbum_ and
_stannum_ for the same metal in Latin. This idea treats the substance
as taking its name from the colour: and is so far sustained by the
use of the German _blei_, which I presume is the same word as _blau_,
for lead. But it would be singular that Homer should thus have double
names for two metals, which of all classes of objects have perhaps
been most commonly designated by single ones. And this hypothesis
is not in accordance with the evident meaning of κυάνεος in Homer;
since the word indicates a dark and deep hue very far from that of
tin, which Homer describes as white. The after use of κύανος is
equally adverse to the interpretation suggested.
[871] H. N. xxxiv. 16. s. 47.
The most probable interpretation for this difficult word appears
to be that which is also in accordance with its subsequent use and
description as a colour. From Linton’s ‘Ancient and Modern Colours,’
(p. 21,) it appears that there was a κύανος αὐτοφυὴς, which was a
_native_ blue carbonate of copper: and that, according to the express
testimony of Dioscorides, this was obtained by the ancients from
the copper-mines: κύανος δὲ γεννᾶται μὲν ἐν Κύπρῳ ἐκ τῶν χαλκουργῶν
μετάλλων, v. 106. This interpretation would account for our finding
κύανος in Homer: for the rarity of its use: for the dark colour and
the affinity to πορφύρεος. Such a substance would make a good relief
for the cornice in the palace of Alcinous, against the copper-plated
walls: and would stand well in the rest of the passages where it
appears to be placed in relief with other metals, Il. xviii. 564,
xi. 39, and even on the buckler of Agamemnon, xi. 24. For on this
buckler, though the serpents, called κυάνεοι, are evidently placed
in contrast with the οἶμοι, and though among the οἶμοι there are ten
of κύανος, yet, as they are combined with twelve of gold and twenty
of tin, the general effect would be one such as we need not suppose
Homer to have rejected. This blue carbonate is still found among
other copper-ores, but less in our deep mines, than in the shallow
ones worked by the ancients. I understand from a gentleman versed
in metallurgy, that in its purest form it is crystalline, rarely
massive or earthy, of a deep azure, brittle, easily powdered, and
thus readily converted to use as a pigment.
I should therefore suppose that the κύανος is not a metal: that the
οἶμοι on the buckler mean lines or bands coloured in pigment: and
that the boss on the shield is probably a nodule of the substance
in its native state. We can thus understand why κύανος is not used
either with the gold, silver, χαλκὸς, and tin, in the forge of
Vulcan, or with the gold, silver, iron, and χαλκὸς of the chariot
of Juno[872]. We can also understand why, though κύανος is not used
in the forge, yet the trench round the vineyard on the shield of
Achilles is κυανεή[873]. This interpretation is also in conformity
with the Homeric employment of the adjective κυάνεος.
[872] Il. xviii. 474. v. 722.
[873] Ibid. 564.
I understand that there is, in the _Museo Borbonico_ at Naples, a
spoon or ladle, with a boss on the end of the handle, which is formed
of this native blue carbonate of copper bored through for the purpose.
Of the four significations given to χαλκὸς in Homer (copper, brass,
bronze, and iron[874]), I adhere to the first. It cannot be iron,
(1) because it is never mentioned as hard in the same way with it,
(2) because it is so much more common, (3) because these metals are
expressly distinguished one from the other, as in Il. v. 723.
[874] Eustath. Il. i. p. 93.
Neither can the χαλκὸς of Homer be bronze. Not, however, from
absolute want of hardness: for I learn from competent authority that
very good cutting instruments (not, of course, equal to steel) may be
made in a bronze composed of 87½ parts copper, and 12½ parts tin. But
for the following reasons:
1. Homer always speaks of it as a pure metal along with other pure
metals, even where Vulcan casts it into the furnace to be wrought;
Il. xviii. 474.
2. Again, because, although we must not argue too confidently from
Homer’s epithets of colour, yet in this case we may lay considerable
stress not only on his χαλκὸς ἐρυθρὸς (since the ἐρυθρὸς of Homer
leans to brightness), but upon the ἤνοψ and νώροψ, which mean bright
and gleaming. These epithets of light would not apply to bronze: nor
would Homer plate with bronze the walls of the palace of Alcinous.
Neither does it appear likely that he would give us a heaven of
bronze among the imposing imagery of battle, Il. xvii. 424.
3. It does not appear that Homer knew anything at all of the fusion
or alloying of metals.
We have, then, to conclude that χαλκὸς was copper, hardened by some
method; as some think by the agency of water: or else, and more
probably, according to a very simple process, by cooling slowly in
the air. (See Millin, Minéralogie Homérique, pp. 126-32.)