I was long puzzled by
Homer's calling the sea purple; and misled into thinking he meant the
color of cloud shadows on green sea; whereas he really means the gleaming
blaze of the waves under wide light. Aristotle's idea (partly true) is
that light, subdued by blackness, becomes red; and blackness, heated or
lighted, also becomes red. Thus, a color may be called purple because it
is light subdued (and so death is called "purple" or "shadowy" death); or
else it may be called purple as being shade kindled with fire, and thus
said of the lighted sea; or even of the sun itself, when it is thought of
as a red luminary opposed to the whiteness of the moon: "purpureos inter
soles, et candida lunae sidera;" or of golden hair: "pro purpureo poenam
solvens scelerata capillo;" while both ideas are modified by the
influence of an earlier form of the word, which has nothing to do with
fire at all, but only with mixing or staining; and then, to make the
whole group of thoughts inextricably complex, yet rich and subtle in
proportion to their intricacy, the various rose and crimson colors of the
murex dye,--the crimson and purple of the poppy, and fruit of the palm,--
and the association of all these with the hue of blood,--partly direct,
partly through a confusion between the word signifying "slaughter" and
"palm-fruit color," mingle themselves in, and renew the whole nature of
the old word; so that, in later literature, it means a different color,
or emotion of color, in almost every place where it occurs; and cast
forever around the reflection of all that has been dipped in its dyes.
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