SIGHT AND SEEING IN ANCIENT TIMES 4*9 



from his head downwards . . . and from his head caused deep curling 

 locks to flow like the hyacinth flower.' This comparison, which is 

 made twice, is absolutely incomprehensible to us, if it has reference to 

 color. It is also noteworthy that the epithet which is variously trans- 

 lated ' golden/ ' fair,' ' blond ' is so applied to most of the Greek heroes 

 and to horses. Evidently the author of the Homeric poems believed 

 that the Greek nobles did not have the usual dark complexion of the 

 southern races. Be that as it may, we can not resist the conviction 

 that in primitive times the various shades of color that made the 

 same general impression on the sight were named alike. There was 

 hardly any discrimination of the sensations. Homer's usual method 

 of designation of colors is by comparison ; hence such words as ' steel- 

 blue,' ' saffron-colored,' t blood-red,' ' vermilion-cheeked ' are common. 

 A table has ' dark-blue' feet; the same adjective is also applied to the 

 prow of a ship, to hair, to a horse's mane and to the eye. Fear is said 

 to be chloros (of a greenish yellow). Still, this is hardly more curious 

 or more inexact than Shakspere's ' green-eyed monster,' and the current 

 phrase ' to turn green with envy.' It is not easy to discover the under- 

 lying idea. The same epithet is translated ' blood-red ' when applied 

 to a serpent and ' tawny ' when used of the color of jackals. Though 

 the Homeric Greeks were in some respects a good deal more advanced 

 than our Indians, in the appreciation of the beauties of nature, they 

 were not very wide apart. Henry T. Finck, in his ' Primitive Love,' 

 adduces plenty of evidence to prove that the " Indians have no con- 

 ception of the romantic side of nature — of scenery for its own sake. 

 To them a tree is simply a grouse-perch, or a source of firewood; a 

 lake, a fish-pond; a mountain, the dreaded abode of evil spirits." He 

 assures us that the real Indian and the Hiawatha Indian are just as 

 much alike as fact and fancy. In Homer's circle there was no in- 

 terest in flowers or blossoms and no mention is made of garlands, 

 although they played so important a part in the social life of the later 

 Greeks. When flowers are mentioned at all it is almost solely on ac- 

 count of their color, which serves as a basis of comparison. One ex- 

 ception that I recall is the passage where one of Priam's sons is smitten 

 with an arrow so that : " Even as a garden poppy droopeth its head 

 aside, being heavy with fruit and the showers of spring; so bowed he 

 his head aside laden with his helm." The Homeric Poems are su- 

 premely important for the insight they afford into the early civilization 

 of the people which they portray, but they contain a great deal that 

 is repulsive to our far more refined sensibilities. Empedocles speaks 

 of but four colors: white, black, red and pale green. It is hard to 

 believe that the age in which this philosopher lived knew at most only 

 two prismatic colors. It is more probable that he regarded green and 

 blue, and perhaps some other colors, as derivatives from these and 

 therefore not entitled to separate enumeration. According to Democ- 



