Homer’s ‘Wine-Dark Sea’ FAQ

Q1: What color is the sea?

A1: Blue, sometimes green.

Q2: Is it red?

A2: No

Q3: Is the sea dark?

A3: Uhh, well I guess at midnight its black. But no, Homer’s ‘Wine-Dark’ Sea is the Blue Sea. Oinops means blue.

Q4: Why am I asking you that question?

A4: Because scholars have interpreted Homer’s Oinopa Ponton as the ‘wine-dark’ sea in the Iliad and Odyssey. There have been a number of theories of why the sea has been described wine like and not blue. Some of those theories revolve around the Greeks not being able to see the color blue, to cultural blindness, to them not having a word for the color blue. Other explanations revolve around scholars throwing their hands up in the air and declaring, “he is a poet who is being poetic, we don’t know, those crazy Greeks were weird with color.”

Q5: What do you think he was describing?

A5: I think he was describing the blue sea.

Q6: Can you help me figure out why?

A6: Sure. Let’s start with the words. Ponton means the sea, it is not controversial. Oinopa comes from the word Oinops, which means “wine-eyed.” The word oinops itself comes from Linear B Minoan tablets from Knossos (a pre-Homeric Greek syllabic script associated with Mycenae). Actually the same ideogram is from Linear A.

The original word is wo-no-qo-so. Although this word does not look much like oinops at first glance, the word oinops (in common with a number of other Greek words) would originally have had an initial letter called digamma, which had approximately the sound of ‘W’, and which had later been dropped; and the ‘Q’ sound in earlier forms of Greek and other Indo-European languages often becomes ‘P’ later.

Q7: I thought it was the “wine-dark sea” and not the wine-eyed sea?

A7: Yes, it has been translated as wine-dark. This is erroneous. The most accurate translation is wine-eyed or wine-faced. The word ‘Oin’ = wine and the word ‘ops’ is eye, (although sometimes it is translated as face.)

Q8: So the sea was wine-eyed in Linear B?

A8: No, wo-no-qo-so in Linear B was not describing the sea, it was describing an epithet for a particular ox.

Q9: What? So the ox was called ‘wine-eyed’ aka blue?

A9: Precisely. The ox was called blue. Homer used the same word to describe the sea, and two other oxen in the Odyssey. The word was also used to described the eyes of Dionysius in the Bacchae.

Q10: You say Homer described the sea as blue. That would mean ‘wine-eyed’ means blue. So what is your reasoning for this assertion?

A10: It’s based on a few ideas.

First, the idea that blue eyes and wine go together is not completely strange in the east mediterranean world. As in my previous Medium post on “K-H-L” we see the Jewish scholar Ramban mention Genesis 49:8–12 and Proverbs 23:29–30 as passages where an individual receives blue eyes from drinking too much wine.

Q11: Yes, I remember reading that piece. But Ramban says the blue was from a person painting their eyes after a night of drinking to cover up their appearance. Surely, they weren’t putting eyeshadow on oxen?

A11: No, I don’t think they were putting eyeshadow(eyeliner) on oxen. Eyeliner means blue. It still does today in many languages such as Levantine and Persian. The ox was called blue. When you drink alot of alcohol (or wine) in a night, the day after you typically have blue circles under your eyes from the hangover.

But interestingly, ‘wine-eyed’ probably could mean the same thing that Ramban asserts it means in the Bible as it does in Homer’s Odyssey. It could refer to blue, from the malachite/azurite stone that women put eyeliner on (along with the Galena (or lead) black eyeliner). We see this eyeliner=blue pattern in numerous semitic languages, including Persian. Surmeh in Persian is the native mascara but the word means blue. I have discussed in the previous Medium post the kohl-alcohol connection. Blue eyes seems to mean some form of drunkenness and/or cosmetics.

In the Minoan society paintings women have the blue streaks in their eyes (is the use of blue eyes evidence of alcohol drinking in paintings?). They have galena around their almond shaped eyes as well. This kohl and cosmetic appearance is mirrored in Egypt, and near-east societies.

Q12: Ok, but why would you describe an ox as blue? Is there anything blue about them?

A12: Well, some of them have blue eyes. Blue eyes are recessive tho, so its not very common. Perhaps the ox in the Linear B tablet was born with blue eyes, hence the name.

But what’s interesting isn’t that there are some cows born with blue eyes. It’s that there are is a specific eye condition (Corneal Edema) that affect cows that turn their eyes blue and is much more common than cows who are born with blue eyes. Only a few cows are born with blue eyes but all could potentially change their eye color to blue through corneal edema.

Corneal Edema is often caused by direct trauma to the eye. How could they receive the trauma? From being worked really hard in the field. Corneal Edema is not rare, especially with beasts that are put to work. Think about Corneal Edema as being similar to Cataracts in humans (which we’ll get to later).

In the Odyssey we see the passages describing the oinops oxen as being worked very hard. Here the translator uses “ops” to mean face and not eyes. They certainly are working until they blue in the face.

Q13: Ok, so what are your other ideas?

A13: Maybe (Wine eyed) refers to the cup they drank wine out of .

Q14: Do you believe that?

A14: Eh, It’s just an excuse to show some great Minoan art. I think it is interesting that wine, eye and blue keep getting intermingled in the east mediterranean cultures. I don’t know if it is a coincidence, quite frankly.

Eye health was very important. Cataracts were an issue. A person with a cataract sometimes has ‘clouded’ eyes. The cloudyness make their eyes appear dull blue in color. Light blue/gray eyes can also be caused by a lack of development in the retina or the eye in general, which is why the ‘blind people are blue-eyed’ thing stays commonly true despite the fact that we can fix cataracts and corneal damage somewhat.

Today the most common cause of blindness from drinking is methanol. Methanol, otherwise known as methyl alcohol or wood alcohol, can damage the optic nerve and even kill you in high concentrations. Blindness and alcohol have been synonymous for a very, very long time.

Heavy drinking may also figure into one of the world’s leading causes of preventable blindness. Cataracts are incredibly common among older individuals and occur after years of damage causes proteins in the eye to turn opaque. Once they do so, they interfere with light entering the eye, causing a scattering effect and often resulting in decreased visual acuity, difficulty with high-glare conditions, and astigmatism, or blurry vision.

Recent work by a team from Boston University found that heavy consumption of alcohol (more than two drinks per day) seriously increased study subject’s risk of having cataract surgery.

I have discussed briefly in my previous Medium post about how there is a strong possibility the Minoans and Homeric Greeks were drinking liquor far stronger than red wine. That mead, absinthe and ethanol was available and deadly in high doses. This would explain the obsession with mixing wine and water when it is is unheard of today.

Q15: What about the other text you said “wine-dark” was in? Euripides Bacchae?

A15: Yes, here you go:

Q16: What does this passage mean to you?

A16: Sounds like a guy with blonde hair and blue eyes taking all the women, getting everyone drunk and telling stories. Here we see blue, alcohol and eyes once again together.

Q17: Calling a cow blue sure seems strange, do we have modern examples of cows being named blue?

A17: The Nilgai in India is a big cow, its name literally means the “blue bull”. The Belgium Blue Bull also exists today.