14, 15. Among adjectives of motion, which have sometimes been improperly treated as adjectives of colour, are ἄργος and αἴολος. The former acquires an affinity to white, because it may signify an object which, from being rapidly moved, assumes in the light the appearance of whiteness[845], and along with it may be placed its derivatives ἀργεννὸς, ἀργεστὴς, ἀργὴς, ἀργινόεις, ἀργιόδους, ἀργίπους, and ἀργικέραυνος. The latter, as in αἴολος ὄφις, αἴολος ἵππος, κορυθαίολος, πόδας αἴολος, seems to mean whatever from the same cause appears to shift its hues.
16. Of those adjectives of light in Homer, which have also been taken for adjectives of colour, the most important is γλαυκός. Its uses, however, are only as follows:
a. γλαυκὴ θάλασσα, Il. xvi. 34.
b. Γλαυκῶπις, the standing epithet, and even a proper name, of Minerva, Il. viii. 406.
c. γλαυκιόων; applied to the eye of a lion, when, reaching the height of his wrath, he makes his rush at the hunters, Il. xx. 172.
The last of these passages seems effectually to fix the sense of the term. The word γλαυκιόων describes a progression. The lion does not enhance the colour of his eye as he waxes angry. If, for example, γλαυκὸς can be taken as blue, it certainly does not become more blue: on the contrary, rage, when kindling fire in the eye, rather subdues its peculiar tint by flooding it with a vivid light. So the word seems clearly to refer to the brightening flash of the eye under the influence of passion. Of light and its movement, as also of sound, and of beautiful form, Homer’s conceptions are even more distinct and lively, than those of colour are, if not dull, yet at least indeterminate.
Γλαυκὸς is derived from γλαύσσω; and has for its root λάω, to see. The meaning of bright or flashing will suit the sea, as well as the epithet blue. And it suits Minerva far better. ‘Blue-eyed’ would be for her but a tame epithet. The luminous eye, on the contrary, entirely accords with her character, and belongs to a marked trait of those primitive traditions, which she appears to represent[846].
17. Χάροπος is applied to the lion in Od. xi. 611; and it is the proper name of the father of Nireus in the Catalogue, while his mother is Ἀγλαΐη. From this latter use we see that χάροπος is not in Homer an epithet of colour; since he never describes the face by means of colour. Its etymology refers us to gladsomeness; and this is much more connected, in the Poet’s mind, with light than with colour.
18, 19. Besides these we have
σιγαλόεις, glossy, like σίαλος, or fat; and μαρμάρεος, applied