OF BLACKNESS in MYTHOLOGICAL NAMES Richard Buxton the Aim Of
THE SIGNIFICANCE (OR INSIGNIFICANCE) OF BLACKNESS IN MYTHOLOGICAL NAMES Richard Buxton The aim of this paper is to examine certain mythological names involving the component melas. In order to set this enquiry into context, however, I shall first look at the general opposition between melas and leukos in Greek thought. In his still useful dissertation Die Bedeutung der weissen und der schwarzen Farbe in Kult und Brauch der Griechen und Römer, Gerhard Radke conveys a message which is basically very straightforward: in rela- tion to the gods and their worship, black is negative, white positive.1 Melas is associated with the Underworld,2 with Ate,3 with death,4 with mourning.5 In keeping with this nexus of funereal associations, animals described as melas are sacrificed to powers of the Underworld and to the dead: thus at Odyssey .– Odysseus promises to dedicate an 5ϊν παμμλανα to Teiresias if he gets back safe to Ithaca, while in Colophon, according to Pausanias (..), they sacrifice a black bitch to Enodia, andmoreovertheydosoatnight.6 Leukos, by contrast, is associated not just with divinities of light such as Helios and Day—in Aeschylus’ Persians () the glorious day of the victory at Salamis is a λευκ- πωλς μρα—but with divinities in general, especially when they are conceived of as ‘favourable’: the Dioscuri, those twin saviours, ride on 1 G. Radke, Die Bedeutung der weissen und der schwarzen Farbe in Kult und Brauch der Griechen und Römer (diss. Berlin; Jena: Neuenhahn, ). P.Vidal-Naquet, “Le chasseur noir et l’origine de l’éphébie athénienne”, Annales. Économies, Sociétés, Civilisations (): –, revised in Le chasseur noir: formes de pensée et formes de société dans le monde grec (Paris: Maspero, ), – () called this a ‘catalogue consciencieux’.
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