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> There was no blue in the Odyssey or the Iliad because the Greeks didn't have a word for it yet. That's not true. From the description of Alcinoos' palace in
by Telemakhos 5y ago
> There was no blue in the Odyssey or the Iliad because the Greeks didn't have a word for it yet.
That's not true. From the description of Alcinoos' palace in Odyssey 7.87: περὶ δὲ θριγκὸς κυάνοιο ("around was a cornice of blue enamel"). κύανος is dark blue, and it is used later in Greek to describe the color of lapis lazuli. In the Iliad it's used of blue enamel on armor, as at Iliad 11.24: τοῦ δ' ἤτοι δέκα οἶμοι ἔσαν μέλανος κυάνοιο ("there were ten stripes of dark blue enamel") on the breastplate of Agamemnon, and κυάνεοι δράκοντες ("blue enamel snakes") two lines later.
- stephenhuey 5y agoIn later stages of Greek it meant blue, but I also had read how for Homer it probably did not mean that. Here's a quote from the related Wikipedia entry: The word kyanós (κυανός), which in later stages of Greek meant blue, does make a limited appearance, but for Homer it almost certainly meant "dark", as it was used to describe the eyebrows of Zeus. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wine-dark_sea_(Homer) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wine-dark_sea_(Homer) Also see this 2015 paper: Wine-Dark Sheep: Ancient Color in a Modern Greek Odyssey https://scholarworks.uvm.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1115&context=hcoltheses https://scholarworks.uvm.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=111...