What Color are Odysseus’ Phrases? Traces of Synaesthesia in Homeric Scholarship – Antigone

Alexandra Trachsel

Traces of Synaesthesia in Antiquity

Basically, sounds and hues contain two completely different senses of notion: sounds are heard, whereas colors are seen. But in uncommon instances there appear to be exceptions. An instance is the phenomenon referred to as synaesthesia, which describes a situation the place the stimulation of 1 sense concurrently triggers a response that makes it appear as if a second sense has additionally been stimulated. The most typical instance of synaesthesia entails the involuntary connection of colors with sounds – or extra exactly, with alphabetical letters that specific explicit sounds. A well-known instance is seen within the sonnet Voyelles (“Vowels”), composed by the French poet Arthur Rimbaud (1854–91) in 1871/2:

A noir, E blanc, I rouge, U vert, O bleu, voyelles,
Je dirai quelque jour vos naissances latentes.
A, noir corset velu des mouches éclatantes
Qui bombillent autour des puanteurs cruelles,

Golfes d’ombre; E, candeur des vapeurs et des tentes,
Lances des glaciers fiers, rois blancs, frissons d’ombelles;
I, pourpres, sang craché, rire des lèvres belles
Dans la colère ou les ivresses pénitentes;

U, cycles, vibrements divins des mers virides,
Paix des pâtis semés d’animaux, paix des rides
Que l’alchimie imprime aux grands fronts studieux;

O, suprême Clairon plein des strideurs étranges,
Silences traversés des Mondes et des Anges:
— O l’Oméga, rayon violet de Ses Yeux!

In George J. Dance’s 2015 translation this reads:

Black A, white E, pink I, inexperienced U, blue O: you vowels,
Some day I’ll inform the story of the place your thriller lies:
Black A, a jacket fashioned of furry, shiny flies
That buzz amongst harsh stinks within the abyss’s bowels;

White E, the white of kings, of moon-washed fogs and tents,
Of fields of shivering chervil, glaciers’ gleaming suggestions;
Purple I, magenta, spat-up blood, the curl of lips
In laughter, hatred, or besotted penitence;

Inexperienced U, vibrating waves in viridescent seas,
Or peaceable pastures flecked with beasts – furrows of peace
Imprinted on our brows as if by alchemies;

Blue O, nice Trumpet blaring unusual and piercing cries
By means of Silences the place Worlds and Angels go crosswise;
Omega, O, the violet brilliance of These Eyes!

Rimbaud will not be alone on this: his barely older modern Charles Baudelaire (1821–67) additionally explores this type of expertise, most famously in his poem Correspondances, which was first revealed in his assortment Les Fleurs du Mal (“The Flowers of Evil”) in 1857. The painter Wassily Kandinsky (1886–1944) additionally skilled synaesthesia, as is effectively documented; this impressed a few of his most well-known work, which try and seize the impact of music.

Extra importantly for us as Classicists, Mark Bradley attracts our consideration to an analogous however a lot shorter passage written in round AD 180 by the Roman creator Aulus Gellius. In a chapter of his Attic Nights, he describes the letter ‘H’ as viridior (a comparative type from the adjective viridis that could be translated expansively as “extra intense within the color that additionally denotes the greenness of vegetation”):

H litteram, sive illam spiritum magis quam litteram dici oportet, inserebant eam veteres notri plerisque vocibus verborum firmandis roborandisque, ut sonus earum esset viridior vegetiorque.

The letter H, or it might be extra acceptable to call it aspiration than letter, our forefathers launched it to strengthen and reinforce the pronunciation of many phrases, in order that their sounds could also be more energizing and extra vivid. (Aulus Gellius, Attic Nights 2.3.1; tr. J. C. Rolfe (1946) barely tailored)

Though Aulus Gellius offers just one instance, we’ve some proof that it was widespread in these days to make use of this type of method to discuss sounds and letters. Even Aristotle (384–322 BC), whose surviving philosophical reflections on senses don’t embrace such synaesthetic experiences, acknowledges that colors and sounds might usually be designated with the identical phrases. As examples he makes use of the adjectives “white” (λευκός, leukos) and “black” (μέλας, melas):

φωνὴ γὰρ λευκὴ καὶ μέλαινα λέγεται, ὁμοίως δὲ καὶ χρῶμα. τοῖς μὲν οὖν ὀνόμασιν οὐδὲν διαφωνεῖ· τῷ δ’ εἴδει κατάδηλος ἐν αὐτοῖς εὐθέως ἡ διαφορά· οὐ γὰρ ὁμοίως τό τε χρῶμα λευκὸν λέγεται καὶ ἡ φωνή. δῆλον δὲ τοῦτο καὶ διὰ τῆς αἰσθήσεως· τῶν γὰρ αὐτῶν τῷ εἴδει ἡ αὐτὴ αἴσθησις, τὸ δὲ λευκὸν τὸ ἐπὶ τῆς φωνὴ καὶ τοῦ χρῶματος οὐ τῇ αὐτῇ αἰσθήσει κρίνουμεν, ἀλλὰ τὸ μὲν ὄψει τὸ δὲ ἀκοῇ.

For sound is claimed to be “white” and “black”, as is color too. Certainly, on the extent of the phrases, there is no such thing as a discrepancy, however the distinction of their form is instantly apparent; for the color will not be referred to as “white” in the identical method as is the sound. That is evident additionally via sense-perception. For a similar sense-perception is stimulated by issues of the identical form, and we don’t choose the whiteness of the sound with the identical sense-perception because the one of many color, however we choose the previous by sight and the latter by listening to. (Aristotle, Matters, E book 1, 106a 25–30, tr. E.S. Forster (1960), barely tailored)

In rhetorical contexts such makes use of are certainly widespread: high-quality oratory is usually in comparison with a vibrant image by which the artist skilfully combines his pigments to captivate his viewers and evoke a variety of feelings in them. One telling instance comes from Dionysius of Halicarnassus, a Greek scholar from the Augustan period (second half of the 1^st century BC) who lived at across the identical time because the Roman orator and statesman Cicero (106–43 BC). In certainly one of his works, on the literary qualities of Thucydides, he attributes acceptable “color” to the historian’s most interesting passages of writing:

ὑπὲρ ἁπάσας δὲ τὰς ἐν ταῖς ἑπτὰ βύβλοις φερομένας τὴν Πλαταιέων ἀπολογίαν τεθαύμακα παρ᾽ οὐδὲν οὕτως ἕτερον ὡς τὸ μὴ βεβασανίσθαι μηδὲ κατεπιτετηδεῦσθαι, ἀληθεῖ δέ τινι καὶ φυσικῷ κεκοσμῆσθαι χρώματι. τά τε γὰρ ἐνθυμήματα πάθους ἐστὶ μεστὰ καὶ ἡ λέξις οὐκ ἀποστρέφουσα τὰς ἀκοάς· ἥ τε γὰρ σύνθεσις εὐεπὴς καὶ τὰ σχήματα τῶν πραγμάτων ἴδια.

Above all speeches transmitted within the seven books, it’s the apology of the Plataeans that I love most, for nothing else than due to its lack of something unnatural and synthetic and since it’s adorned with reality and with a pure color. For the arguments are stuffed with emotions and its diction doesn’t distort the listening. For the composition is melodious and the figures of speech are tailored to the content material. (Dionysius of Halicarnassus, Thucydides §42; tr. S. Usher (1974) barely tailored)

However what do these rhetorical ruminations on colors and sounds have in widespread with Odysseus and his good rhetoric abilities within the Homeric poems?

Odysseus’ Oratorical Abilities within the Iliad

Most prominently, the hero’s skills are described in a widely known simile from E book 3 of the Iliad. On this passage, Odysseus’ speech is in contrast with the snowflakes of a winter storm:

ἀλλ᾽ ὅτε δὴ πολύμητις ἀναΐξειεν Ὀδυσσεύς
στάσκεν, ὑπαὶ δὲ ἴδεσκε κατὰ χθονὸς ὄμματα πήξας,
σκῆπτρον δ᾽ οὔτ᾽ ὀπίσω οὔτε προπρηνὲς ἐνώμα,
ἀλλ᾽ ἀστεμφὲς ἔχεσκεν ἀίδρεϊ φωτὶ ἐοικώς·
φαίης κε ζάκοτόν τέ τιν᾽ ἔμμεναι ἄφρονά τ᾽ αὔτως.
ἀλλ᾽ ὅτε δὴ ὄπα τε μεγάλην ἐκ στήθεος ἵει
καὶ ἔπεα νιφάδεσσιν ἐοικότα χειμερίῃσιν,
οὐκ ἂν ἔπειτ᾽ Ὀδυσῆί γ᾽ ἐρίσσειε βροτὸς ἄλλος.

However when the astute Odysseus arose, he stood nonetheless and regarded down, directing his eyes in direction of the bottom. He moved his workers neither backwards nor forwards, however held it motionless like an ignorant man. One would have stated he was totally offensive, and merely a idiot. However when he let loose his voice from his breast, and uttered phrases just like the snowflakes of a winter storm, then no different human may compete with Odysseus. (Iliad 3.216–23, my translation)

Within the Homeric textual content of the Iliad, this simile is actually the second a part of an extended passage the place Odysseus is in comparison with Menelaos. It comes from a verbal report given by Antenor, one of many Trojan counsellors of King Priam, who remembers his first encounter with the 2 heroes. Early within the decade-long Trojan Warfare, Menelaos and Odysseus went to Troy as envoys to reclaim Helena from the Trojans. Every hero delivered a speech skilfully presenting  their request to the Trojans.

It isn’t this episode that’s narrated in E book 3 of the Iliad, however Antenor’s reminiscences of this trade. He remembers certainly that Menelaos’ speech was fluent (ἐπιτροχάδην, epitrochadēn), and clear (λιγέως, ligeōs). It was additionally concise (παῦρα, paura) in order that it allowed the hero to get straight to the purpose (οὐκ ἀγαμαρτοεπής, ouk agamartoepēs) with out being verbose (οὐ πολύμυθος, ou polumūthos). The aforementioned simile, in contrast, is Antenor’s method of characterising Odysseus’ overwhelming oratorical skills compared to Menelaos’ efficiency.

The passage has been singled out for dialogue by historical commentators, particularly within the context of rhetoric treatises. The Roman rhetorician Quintilian (writing within the late 1st cent. AD) used the Homeric heroes to characterise the three historical rhetoric types, the so-called genera dicendi. In a passage from E book 10 of his Institutes of Oratory, Quintilian explains that Menelaos represented the “low fashion” (genus humile), whereas Odysseus is associates with the “excessive fashion” (genus chic). For the third fashion, the middleman “center fashion” (genus medium), Quintilian names Nestor, the previous, smart adviser of the Achaeans troops, to finish his comparability. For this, he adduces an extra passage from E book 1 of the Iliad the place Nestor’s oratory abilities are praised:

Odysseus’ Eloquence and the Color White

The marginal commentaries and explanatory notes in some mediaeval manuscripts of Homer protect ‘scholia’ (commentators’ notes) which allow us to learn historical students’ makes an attempt to elucidate the Homeric simile from E book 3 of the Iliad.

Certainly one of these explanatory notes is of appreciable curiosity with regard to the traces of synaesthesia that we search. It certainly takes account of the color of snowflakes to elucidate the simile with which the Homeric textual content evokes the qualities of Odysseus’ speech. The brief remark runs as follows:

νιφάδεσσιν ἐοικότα <χειμερίῃσιν>· ἡ εἰκὼν πρὸς τὸ τάχος, τὸ πλῆθος, τὸ πυκνόν, τὸ σαφές, τὸ λευκὸν τῆς νιφάδος, τὴν φρίκην τῶν ἀκουόντων. καὶ αἱ μὲν χειμέριαι ἁπαλαί, αἱ δὲ ἐαριναὶ ἐκκόπτουσι τοὺς καρπούς.

Just like the snowflakes of a winter storm: the simile in regard to the pace, the amount, the thickness, the readability, the whiteness of the snow and the trembling of the listeners. Furthermore, winter storms are benign, whereas spring storms injury crops. (Scholia [T] on Iliad 3.222)

The remark divides into two sections: the primary, longer one is an try to elucidate the primary component of the Homeric method, the snowflakes (νιφάδεσσιν, niphadessin); whereas the a lot briefer second half considerations the temporal indication “of a winter storm” (χειμερίῃσιν, cheimeriēisin). For current functions, we might emphasise the primary half, since among the many objects listed to elucidate the simile we discover the whiteness of  snowflakes.

Sadly, the remark is simply too brief to permit us to grasp exactly how the traditional commentator needed to make use of the color white to characterise Odysseus’ speech; at the very least it clearly considerations the readability that’s talked about instantly beforehand. All the identical, we should always not over-emphasise his give attention to the “brightness” that could be related to white snowflakes, because the “whiteness” of the snow will not be the principal component in Homer’s simile. The snowflakes are moved by a winter storm that actually boasts all-encompassing power, however lacks “brightness” in and of itself.

With a view to perceive the Homeric simile higher, we might should adduce one other textual content, an epigram attributed to Philippos of Thessalonica, who will be approximatively dated to the 1^st century AD. On this poem, the colors white and black are used to outline two classes of literary manufacturing:

Χαίροιθ’, οἱ περὶ κόσμον ἀεὶ πεπλανηκότες ὄμμα 
      οἵ τ’ ἀπ’ Ἀριστάρχου σῆτες ἀκανθολόγοι.
ποῖ γὰρ ἐμοὶ ζητεῖν, τίνας ἔδραμεν Ἥλιος οἴμους
      καὶ τίνος ἦν Πρωτεὺς καὶ τίς ὁ Πυγμαλίων;
γινώσκοιμ’, ὅσα λευκὸν ἔχει στίχον· ἡ δὲ μέλαινα
        ἱστορίη τήκοι τοὺς Περικαλλιμάχους.

Farewell to you, who let ceaselessly wander your eyes via the universe, and to you bookworms, who since Aristarchus acquire thorny subtilities. The place does it lead me to research what programs the Solar took, and who was the daddy of Proteus and who was Pygmalion? Let me acknowledge all these works which have white verses. However, the darkish lore might it destroy the Tremendous-Callimacheans. (Greek Anthology 11.347, tr. W.R. Paton (1918), barely tailored)

On this poem, a unique side of the color white is supposed. The literary works the speaker of the poem seeks characteristic one other high quality: they need to be self-explanatory; their message needs to be instantly clear, with out requiring prolonged, “thorny” researches so as to be understood. The speaker contrasts this type of literary manufacturing in opposition to works with demanding subjects which will soak up the creator’s in addition to the listener’s (or reader’s) whole consideration.

On this context, the whiteness and blackness of the works symbolize not readability versus obscurity, however self-evident intelligibility versus engrossing complexity. “Darkish” lore absorbs all of the vitality and a focus of these concerned with it, whereas the whiteness of the opposite form of literary manufacturing represents a form of energy emanating from the phrases that imprints their which means instantly upon the thoughts.

At this level, we might return to Homer’s simile. Within the gentle of this a lot later epigram, we might higher perceive the qualities of Odysseus’ speech. Just like the “white” strains of verse within the epigram, the winter storm, which steers the snowflakes, possesses an encompassing energy – to cowl all the pieces with snow. Equally, Odysseus’ speech has the ability to persuade his viewers directly, by overwhelming his listeners slightly than by absorbing their consideration.

Alexandra Trachsel is Senior Lecturer in Classics on the College of Hamburg. Her present analysis matter focuses on the transmission of information, and she or he research historical citation practices in imperial miscellanies. Additional pursuits of hers embrace Homer, Homeric scholarship and its frustratingly fragmentary state of preservation. She has beforehand written for Antigone about palimpsests.

Additional Studying:

On colors on the whole, there’s now a big array of research out there. Among the many edited quantity, these three present a really broad overview on the present stage of analysis.

On historical synaesthesia you might wish to begin with Shane Butler and Alex Purves (edd.), Synaesthesia and the Historic Senses (Acumen, Durham, 2013).

David Wharton (ed.), A Cultural Historical past of Colour in Antiquity (Bloomsbury, London, 2021).

Katerina Ierodiakonou (ed.), Psychologie de la couleur dans le monde gréco-romain, Fondation Hardt, Vandœuvres, 2020).

Marcello Carastro (ed.), L’antiquité en couleurs: catégories, pratiques, représentations, (Jérôme Millon, Grenoble, 2009).

On the traditional remedy of color notion, see Michaela Sassi, Perceiving Colours, in P. Destrée & P. Murray (edd.), A Companion to Historic Aesthetics (Wiley-Blackwell, Chichester, 2015) 262–73.

For a particular give attention to colors in Roman Rhetoric, see:

Mark Bradley, Color and Which means in Historic Rome (Cambridge UP, 2011).

Arthur Quinn, The Colour of Rhetoric, in G. Ueding (ed.), Rhetorik zwischen den Wissenschaften. Geschichte, System, Praxis als Probleme des “Historischen Wörterbuchs der Rhetorik” (Max Niemeyer Verlag, Berlin, 1991) 133–8).

Lastly, for the traditional interpretations of the Homeric simile from E book 3 of the Iliad, I quoted Sylvie Perceau, Autour de la custom du fashion chic d’Ulysse: dénotation, connotations, cliché, ou la fortune d’une comparaison homérique, in Sandrine Dubel, Anne-Marie Favreau-Linder & Estelle Oudot (edd.), Homère rhétorique: études de réception vintage (Brepols, Turnhout, 2018) 107–20.