4 ms·

Since I began studying Greek, the whole wine-dark thing has struck me as pretty silly. The actual phrase is οἶνοψ πόντος (oinops pontos) which means "wine-face

Since I began studying Greek, the whole wine-dark thing has struck me as pretty silly. The actual phrase is οἶνοψ πόντος (oinops pontos) which means "wine-face sea." Pontos refers to the open sea, not the shallows or the sea near shore. For some reason the English-speaking world thinks it has to be translated as a color word. Maybe because it was incorrectly translated as wine-dark? But it's not exclusively a color word, just like "metallic" is not exclusively a color word in English. It means exactly what it says: wine-faced, having a wine-like surface. The Greeks didn't drink wine in glasses like we do today. They mixed wine in a giant mixing bowl called a κρατήρ (krater). It could be different colors and was sometimes cloudy, like natural wines are today. They often mixed in honey, herbs, and fruit. Wine was also seen as a god: we say that Dionysos was the god of wine, but to the Greeks, wine itself was commonly thought of as being Dionysos. So when imagining an oinops pontos, instead of picturing of a glass of pinot noir, imagine a huge bowl sitting in a candle-lit room, filled with a dark cloudy liquid, still swirling and bubbling slightly, shapes occasionally surfacing, a sheen reflecting the flickering candle light, containing a mysterious divine power. That's what Homer's referencing when he says wine-faced. The surface of the sea is like the surface of that bowl of wine–probably with the implication of a mysterious divine power beneath.

lqet 7y ago
Excellent write-up, which to me makes complete sense. Something that also struck me as strange was this remark in the Wikipedia article: > The Bible mentions a "red horse", not far from Homer's red oxen, while honey is described using variations of green in both of these texts. Here is a glass of honeydew honey: http://www.honig-onlineshop.at/upload/imgproc/398479_eb.jpg http://www.honig-onlineshop.at/upload/imgproc/398479_eb.jpg For which, in my opinion, "variations of green" is a perfectly valid description. I would also be perfectly comfortable with describing the color of this horse as "red": https://img.freepik.com/fotos-kostenlos/rotes-pferd-das-an-der-wiese-weiden-laesst_97070-595.jpg?size=626&ext=jpg https://img.freepik.com/fotos-kostenlos/rotes-pferd-das-an-d...
- krilly 7y ago
  The reason 'red' is acceptable to describe the horse, despite the fact that it is clearly not red, is because the concept of orange only entered the English languange relatively recently. Before that it was described as red, and some vestiges of this remain (e.g. redhead). Imagine a continuous colour wheel. Most people from the same culture today will draw the same boundaries between colors. Red, purple, blue, green, etc. What is to say these boundaries are objective? If in our own language red through orange was once referenced with a single word, why shouldn't red through blue have a single name in ancient Greek?
  - valarauko 7y ago
    Red through blue covers a vast segment of your continuous colour wheel analogy, perhaps some two thirds. How likely is it that an ancient culture would have a single word for such a vast expanse of the natural world? Not impossible, just highly unlikely.
- ars 7y ago
  The yellow/green thing from the Bible is simply a mistake in Wikipedia. The word that today means green "yarok" was used in the past to describe gold and an egg: http://www.balashon.com/2006/08/yarok.html?m=1 http://www.balashon.com/2006/08/yarok.html?m=1
  - petjuh 7y ago
    What's interesting is that both green and yellow come from a common root wood which originally meant grow/growth. They were the colors if plant growth - green in summer and yellow in autumn. https://en.m.wiktionary.org/wiki/Reconstruction:Proto-Indo-European/%C7%B5%CA%B0elh%E2%82%83- https://en.m.wiktionary.org/wiki/Reconstruction:Proto-Indo-E...
CrazyStat 7y ago
It's a nice theory but how do the wine-face oxen fit into it? Is it suddenly a description of color there, or are they also a dark cloudy liquid, still swirling and bubbling sightly, etc.?
- lqet 7y ago
  > Is it suddenly a description of color there? Why not? This is poetry, not an exact science, so playing with the meaning of words is not only completely acceptable, but desirable. Why shouldn't 'wine-faced' relate to the surface texture of wine in one occasion, and to its color in another? There certainly wasn't room for any confusion, because even if the ancient Greeks had a different understanding of colors than ours, they still knew that wine has another color than the sea (example: in our color system, wine is red, and a traffic light is red. Yet you distinctly know that a red traffic light does not have the color of wine). So it was perfectly clear that Homer meant the surface texture when referring to the sea. The Greeks also knew that there are no oxen which are liquid on the surface (as mentioned below, this may also relate to sweat), so it was perfectly clear Homer meant the color here.
  - Iv 7y ago
    > (example: in our color system, wine is red, and a traffic light is red. Yet you distinctly know that a red traffic light does not have the color of wine) But would you call the green light blue? Because I know some Japanese who do. Green/Blue is not as clear cut in some colors. And for many in Japan, the shinto gates (The torii) is not red. It is of its own color, between red and orange. I see it is often translated into "vermillon", which, let's admit, we would just call red. So is it possible that in the distant past, a civilization would consider dark red and dark blue the same color? That instead of one "blue" category they would mix several other unnamed colors? I can believe it. I think most civilizations will differentiate between the color of the blood and the color of vegetation but apart from that, I can imagine a very different palette. And while I consider it unlikely just given the elements we have, let's not be totally closed to the possibility that the biological color perception changed since then. Arguably, nowadays, color-blindness is a bigger handicap than a slight myopia. It hinders you in several artistic or design-oriented careers. Even had a classmate struggling with resistors color code (in the good old days of the DIP components). Myopia will just be a problem for pilots and is easily corrected. Has it been the case for long enough to apply a selective pressure? I doubt it but am opened to being proven wrong.
povertyworld 7y ago
Coincidently, I was just reading the M.L. West translation of Hesiod earlier today, and he also used the term "wine-faced sea" a few times.
lsb 7y ago
There's a beautiful essay by the late William Harris about exactly this: http://wayback.archive-it.org/6670/20161201175416/http://community.middlebury.edu/~harris/Classics/purple.html http://wayback.archive-it.org/6670/20161201175416/http://com... The ancient Greek word purphureos, which comes into English as purple, meant something like "dark and shimmering", and described wine and blood and the sea as purphureos. Much like we describe many things as "iridescent" that aren't rainbow-y (Gk iris = rainbow)
crazygringo 7y ago
Wow, thank you. I'd always wondered about the whole theory of missing terms for colors, as it had seemed like something wasn't adding up.... but your explanation makes so much more sense. Much appreciated.
RomanBob 7y ago
Maybe you should add it to the wiki discussion page?

lqet 7y ago

Excellent write-up, which to me makes complete sense. Something that also struck me as strange was this remark in the Wikipedia article: > The Bible mentions a "red horse", not far from Homer's red oxen, while honey is described using variations of green in both of these texts. Here is a glass of honeydew honey: http://www.honig-onlineshop.at/upload/imgproc/398479_eb.jpg http://www.honig-onlineshop.at/upload/imgproc/398479_eb.jpg For which, in my opinion, "variations of green" is a perfectly valid description. I would also be perfectly comfortable with describing the color of this horse as "red": https://img.freepik.com/fotos-kostenlos/rotes-pferd-das-an-der-wiese-weiden-laesst_97070-595.jpg?size=626&ext=jpg https://img.freepik.com/fotos-kostenlos/rotes-pferd-das-an-d...

krilly 7y ago
The reason 'red' is acceptable to describe the horse, despite the fact that it is clearly not red, is because the concept of orange only entered the English languange relatively recently. Before that it was described as red, and some vestiges of this remain (e.g. redhead). Imagine a continuous colour wheel. Most people from the same culture today will draw the same boundaries between colors. Red, purple, blue, green, etc. What is to say these boundaries are objective? If in our own language red through orange was once referenced with a single word, why shouldn't red through blue have a single name in ancient Greek?
- valarauko 7y ago
  Red through blue covers a vast segment of your continuous colour wheel analogy, perhaps some two thirds. How likely is it that an ancient culture would have a single word for such a vast expanse of the natural world? Not impossible, just highly unlikely.
ars 7y ago
The yellow/green thing from the Bible is simply a mistake in Wikipedia. The word that today means green "yarok" was used in the past to describe gold and an egg: http://www.balashon.com/2006/08/yarok.html?m=1 http://www.balashon.com/2006/08/yarok.html?m=1
- petjuh 7y ago
  What's interesting is that both green and yellow come from a common root wood which originally meant grow/growth. They were the colors if plant growth - green in summer and yellow in autumn. https://en.m.wiktionary.org/wiki/Reconstruction:Proto-Indo-European/%C7%B5%CA%B0elh%E2%82%83- https://en.m.wiktionary.org/wiki/Reconstruction:Proto-Indo-E...

CrazyStat 7y ago

It's a nice theory but how do the wine-face oxen fit into it? Is it suddenly a description of color there, or are they also a dark cloudy liquid, still swirling and bubbling sightly, etc.?

lqet 7y ago
> Is it suddenly a description of color there? Why not? This is poetry, not an exact science, so playing with the meaning of words is not only completely acceptable, but desirable. Why shouldn't 'wine-faced' relate to the surface texture of wine in one occasion, and to its color in another? There certainly wasn't room for any confusion, because even if the ancient Greeks had a different understanding of colors than ours, they still knew that wine has another color than the sea (example: in our color system, wine is red, and a traffic light is red. Yet you distinctly know that a red traffic light does not have the color of wine). So it was perfectly clear that Homer meant the surface texture when referring to the sea. The Greeks also knew that there are no oxen which are liquid on the surface (as mentioned below, this may also relate to sweat), so it was perfectly clear Homer meant the color here.
- Iv 7y ago
  > (example: in our color system, wine is red, and a traffic light is red. Yet you distinctly know that a red traffic light does not have the color of wine) But would you call the green light blue? Because I know some Japanese who do. Green/Blue is not as clear cut in some colors. And for many in Japan, the shinto gates (The torii) is not red. It is of its own color, between red and orange. I see it is often translated into "vermillon", which, let's admit, we would just call red. So is it possible that in the distant past, a civilization would consider dark red and dark blue the same color? That instead of one "blue" category they would mix several other unnamed colors? I can believe it. I think most civilizations will differentiate between the color of the blood and the color of vegetation but apart from that, I can imagine a very different palette. And while I consider it unlikely just given the elements we have, let's not be totally closed to the possibility that the biological color perception changed since then. Arguably, nowadays, color-blindness is a bigger handicap than a slight myopia. It hinders you in several artistic or design-oriented careers. Even had a classmate struggling with resistors color code (in the good old days of the DIP components). Myopia will just be a problem for pilots and is easily corrected. Has it been the case for long enough to apply a selective pressure? I doubt it but am opened to being proven wrong.

povertyworld 7y ago

Coincidently, I was just reading the M.L. West translation of Hesiod earlier today, and he also used the term "wine-faced sea" a few times.

lsb 7y ago

There's a beautiful essay by the late William Harris about exactly this: http://wayback.archive-it.org/6670/20161201175416/http://community.middlebury.edu/~harris/Classics/purple.html http://wayback.archive-it.org/6670/20161201175416/http://com... The ancient Greek word purphureos, which comes into English as purple, meant something like "dark and shimmering", and described wine and blood and the sea as purphureos. Much like we describe many things as "iridescent" that aren't rainbow-y (Gk iris = rainbow)

crazygringo 7y ago

Wow, thank you. I'd always wondered about the whole theory of missing terms for colors, as it had seemed like something wasn't adding up.... but your explanation makes so much more sense. Much appreciated.

RomanBob 7y ago

Maybe you should add it to the wiki discussion page?