Here gold and sulphur are compared together as similar, at all events in colour, for colour is the only possible tertium comparationis between them; and in fact we also find in Arabic the expression ‘yellow sulphur, as if it were gold’ (kibrît aṣfar kaʾannahu ḏahab).[[400]] I lay particular stress upon this, because a common phrase among the Arabs is, al-kibrît al-aḥmar ‘red sulphur,’ to denote a peculiar person, one without his equal, inasmuch as there is no red sulphur. Now gold, of all things, is commonly used both in the later literature and in popular speech with the epithet red (al-ḏahab al-aḥmar). This phrase, as Osiander has proved,[[401]] occurs also in Himyaric, and passed from Arabic into Persian and Turkish (in Persian zeri surch; in Turkish ḳizil altyn), and is used especially when minted gold is opposed to silver coins. The former is red money, the latter white: e.g. wa-malaʾtum aydîkum min al-ḏahab al-aḥmar wal-fiḍḍâ al-beyḍâ ‘you have filled your hands with red gold and white silver;’[[402]] dihhezâr dînâr zeri surch, ‘ten thousand dînârs of red gold.’[[403]] In a very noteworthy essay, Belin has shown with reference to Turkish that in the Ottoman Empire the metal money is divided into white, ‘aḳ,’ and red, ‘ḳizil’;[[404]] and in Egypt at the present day the silver piaster is called abyaḍ ‘white,’ to distinguish it from the copper money chorde. Muʿâwiyyâ said to Ṣaʿṣaʿâ, ‘Thou Red one;’ and he answered, ‘Gold is red.’[[405]] Thus we see that red has become the constant designation of the colour of gold. Now in what harmony does this stand with the above-quoted designation, ‘sulphur-coloured gold,’ when we consider at the same time the proverbial kibrît aḥmar ‘red sulphur’?
Ethiopic designates gold, not by a derivative of the root ‘ḏhb,’ like the other languages of the same stock, but by the word waraḳ. We cannot decide a priori whether in its origin this word expresses a colour-sensation or not. In Arabic also we find waraḳ or wariḳ in a similar signification, and I can scarcely believe that it must be thrown out of the original treasury of the Arabic vocabulary. Von Kremer classifies it with the Arabic words borrowed from the Persian stock, and refers it to the Huzwâresh warg.[[406]] In old time it was equivalent to ‘property, goods.’[[407]] The poet Suḥeym, an elder contemporary of Moḥammed, says in a little poem, ‘The poems of the slave of the Banû-l-Ḥasḥâs on the day of competition are worth as much as noble birth and waraḳ (property);[[408]] and in some of the traditional sayings of Moḥammed a collateral form of the same word, riḳâ, denotes 'money.’[[409]] The Arabic lexicographers give the signification of both forms as al-darâhim al-maḍrûbâ ‘stamped coins,’ drachmas. In the more general signification we find waraḳ used by Abû Nuwâs in a poem of youth or rather childhood. The poet Ibn Munâdir, finding little Abû Nuwâs leaning against a pillar in the mosque, took a great fancy to him, and addressed an erotic poem to him; upon which the boy extemporised the following verses, and wrote them on the back of the letter:
You write me a letter of praise without any waraḳ (present);
That is like a house built on a foundation of reeds;
But I should think it much pleasanter than your eulogy on me,
If you would send me a pair of black shoes and a fine dress.
If you are willing, do get me a waraḳ (present): if you do so
I shall not turn you away.[[410]]
We see clearly from this example how general the meaning of waraḳ is in Arabic; even a pair of shoes and a dress are included in it. It is, however, probable that the word, which certainly comes from the south of Arabia, originally denoted specially gold, but being supplanted in this narrow sense by ḏahab in ordinary Arabic, was applied first to gold-money, then to money generally (even of silver), and lastly by a further generalisation to goods and objects of value of all kinds. Its South-Arabic origin is also confirmed by the fact that it occurs in Himyarite,[[411]] beside ḏahab and kethem; and there is no reason for supposing, with Halévy, that it denotes specially de l’or en feuilles, contrasted with de l’or en poudre.[[412]] On the other hand, it must be noticed that the root waraḳ in the Semitic languages designates a colour, either green or yellow, and that it is probably owing to this circumstance that gold is in Ethiopic called waraḳ. But this word of colour itself is very fluctuating. Whilst in Ethiopic it designates the colour of gold, in Hebrew it gives a name to grass (yereḳ), and similarly in Arabic the green leaves are called waraḳ, notwithstanding which its diminutive urayyiḳ[[413]] (from auraḳ) denotes a dark brown camel; in irḳân it returns again to the notion yellow or reddish. The Hebrew of the Talmûd and the Targûm employs yârôḳ (which in Biblical Hebrew is mostly used for green, but sometimes of a pale face for yellow, e.g. yêrâḳôn ‘jaundice’) chiefly for a green colour, of vegetables and precious stones;[[414]] nevertheless, we find in the Talmûd (Bab. Nedârîm, 32. a) hôrîḳân bezâhâbh ‘he made it yârôḳ with gold,’ i.e. made it yellow, gilded it. We have in Ps. LXVIII. 14 [13] yeraḳraḳ chârûṣ, flavedo auri. There is a noteworthy passage in Berêshîth rabbâ (sect. 4 near the end), in which the various colours of the sky are mentioned: red, black, white, and also yârôḳ.
The above remarks show how little consistency and distinctness there is in the relation of the names derived from colour to the various types of colour. The same result is reached when we inquire, with what designations of colour other objects are combined. For we find almost everywhere the greatest fluctuation, whether we consider the etymological value of the names themselves, or study the adjectives attached to them. In the most favourable cases only the class of colour—light or dark—is observed; but within the class nothing definite is found. Arabic especially is a field offering abundant matter for observation and demonstration, on which the excellent labours of Lazarus Geiger might be corroborated, completed and extended; but I cannot undertake such a task at this place. We will now limit our observations to the point which has to be established here: the views of colour which were attached to day and night, the sunny sky and the night-sky, the grey of the morning and the red of the evening.