ON COLOURS IN NATURE. 83 
colour of dark bnull’s blood, so the better to show up the 
brightness of the metal. It is likewise noteworthy, with 
regard to the robe in which the soldiers attired our Lord 
before His crucifixion, St. Mark and St. John describe it as 
“ »urple,” St. Matthew as “scarlet,” and St. Luke speaks 
of it as “gorgeous.” If purple and scarlet could be used by 
two different writers in reference to the same dress, it is clear 
that the purple of the ancients must have been decidedly of 
the colour that we should now term red. And it is highly 
probable that the robe in which our Lord was clad in mockery 
of His title as King of the Jews was a “ paludamentum,” or 
old military cloak, of the Roman soldiers, possibly scarlet, like 
our regimentals. 
There can be no question but that the Greek tuppipeoe (from 
which both the Latin purpureus and our “purple” are derived) 
conveyed in its first notion, when used in the Homeric poems, 
the signification of dark without any particular reference to 
colour. Thus, in Iliad I. 482, ropptpeov kima is “a dark 
wave’; Ihad XVI. 391, zop@ipeov adc is the dark sea; Iliad 
XVII. 551, roppupén vepéAn is a dark cloud. Then it came to 
be used more definitely of colour, as topptpeov aia, crimson 
blood; zopptipeoe Pavaroc, bloody death, death in battle. Itis 
also used in other passages of garments and cloths coloured 
by the dye of the murex, like govvixdere in this respect, just as 
the Latin Tyrius is likewise an equivalent for purpureus, for the 
Pheenicians or Tyrians are reported to have been the first to 
discover and use this colour. With regard to the meaning of 
purpureus in the Latin poets, when denoting a particular 
colour, it signifies rosy, red, or reddish, as used of the rose in 
Hor., Od. III.15, 15, “purpureus flos rose”; of the dawn, 
“Aurora,” in Oy., Met., 3, 184; of blushes, ‘‘ rubor oris, ”’ Ov., 
Trist. 4, 3, 70; of poppies, “ papavera,” Prop. I. 20, 38. 
And likewise bright, brilliant, apart from any special tint,as of 
“Jumen juvente,” the light of youth; of ‘ orbes,” equivalent 
to “‘oculi,” the eyes, Val. Fl. 3, 178; of ‘‘colores,” colours, Hor., 
Od.IV.1, 10. Occasionally, but more rarely when used of the 
wave, it means dark, —“ purpureus fluctus” thus corresponds to 
the Homeric zopptpeov kia. Weare probably all of us familiar 
with the anecdote of the blind person who, when asked what 
he supposed the colour of scarlet to resemble, replied that he 
imagined it was like the sound of a trumpet,—no bad illustra- 
tion,when we reflect that of all hues it is the most glaring and 
dazzling. And some of us may have read long ago the old- 
fashioned fairy-tale of Miranda, who, expressing herself tired 
of the perpetual verdure, had her imprudent wish suddenly 
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