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Fwd: Re: wine-dark sea (again)
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As a followup to my earlier post, in which I discussed the
wine-dark sea and the various Greek words for 'blue' from a
classics perspective (which seems to me the most logical
approach), I would add to the Eleanor Irwin book I mentioned
there R. Rutherfurd-Dyer's article "Homer's Wine-Dark Sea,"
Greece and Rome 30.2 (October 1983), 125-28. This very
accessible article (Greece and Rome is aimed at a non-specialist
audience) is available online if your institution subscribes to
JSTOR.
In brief, Rutherfurd-Dyer argues that the adjective (oinops)
refers to the color of the sea at sunset (or before storms),
when it is reflecting the red of the sky, that it should be
translated "sunset-red," and that it has really nothing to do
with blue. He dismisses as romantic the somewhat similar theory
that the red color reflects an oral memory of the way the sky
and sea appeared after the great volcanic eruption at Thera
(dated anywhere from the 15th to the 17th century BCE), although
the mechanics are similar: dust or moisture in the atmosphere
causes the red sky which is reflected on the water's surface.
Such conditions would of course still obtain today and account
for the many anecdotal accounts of the Aegean or Ionian
appearing wine-colored.
I should add too that the more usual Greek word for 'blue,'
kuanos, does indeed occur in Homer, at Odyssey 7.87. It is
thought to derive from cobalt-blue enamel decorations used at
the Minoan Place of Knossos, though in practice it generally
referred to a darker, less brilliant blue. It is well attested
throughout the Greek corpus, from Hesiod to Theocritus. And
purphoros, the source of the Latin purpureus (purple, although
it could range from reddish to violet to brownish), is derived
from the Greek root for fire, and thus underwent a not-uncommon
semantic shift between the two languages that nonetheless
brought it back to something not too far from the Homeric
"oinops."
Mary Bellino
iambe@rcn.com
----- End forwarded message -----
wine-dark sea and the various Greek words for 'blue' from a
classics perspective (which seems to me the most logical
approach), I would add to the Eleanor Irwin book I mentioned
there R. Rutherfurd-Dyer's article "Homer's Wine-Dark Sea,"
Greece and Rome 30.2 (October 1983), 125-28. This very
accessible article (Greece and Rome is aimed at a non-specialist
audience) is available online if your institution subscribes to
JSTOR.
In brief, Rutherfurd-Dyer argues that the adjective (oinops)
refers to the color of the sea at sunset (or before storms),
when it is reflecting the red of the sky, that it should be
translated "sunset-red," and that it has really nothing to do
with blue. He dismisses as romantic the somewhat similar theory
that the red color reflects an oral memory of the way the sky
and sea appeared after the great volcanic eruption at Thera
(dated anywhere from the 15th to the 17th century BCE), although
the mechanics are similar: dust or moisture in the atmosphere
causes the red sky which is reflected on the water's surface.
Such conditions would of course still obtain today and account
for the many anecdotal accounts of the Aegean or Ionian
appearing wine-colored.
I should add too that the more usual Greek word for 'blue,'
kuanos, does indeed occur in Homer, at Odyssey 7.87. It is
thought to derive from cobalt-blue enamel decorations used at
the Minoan Place of Knossos, though in practice it generally
referred to a darker, less brilliant blue. It is well attested
throughout the Greek corpus, from Hesiod to Theocritus. And
purphoros, the source of the Latin purpureus (purple, although
it could range from reddish to violet to brownish), is derived
from the Greek root for fire, and thus underwent a not-uncommon
semantic shift between the two languages that nonetheless
brought it back to something not too far from the Homeric
"oinops."
Mary Bellino
iambe@rcn.com
----- End forwarded message -----