[Sca-cooks] Wine v. Vinegar [Was: Slight rant on logic [Was: Sauerbraten]]

[Martin G. Diehl]

Greetings, 

I saw questions, thoughts, speculations, musings on: 

	Wine v. Vinegar; 

	A Slight on Ranting about Logic; 

	A Renaissance Geek of the Cyber Seas 

And thought of 

	Homer's "Wine-Dark Sea" 

... and having been told in high school that in the time of 
Ancient or Archaic Greece, they drank blue wine -- something
[foolish] about resinous wine and alkaline rich water.  

... but the Truth is both simple and more interesting ... 

    Even when Calypso warns him that he will suffer 
    still more trials, Odysseus replies, 

    "And if a god will wreck me yet again on the wine-dark sea, 
    I can bear that too, with a spirit tempered to endure.  
    Much have I suffered, labored long and hard by now 
    in the waves and wars. Add this to the total-- 
    bring the trial on!"

from [   "Homer's Odyssey in the Past"  ]
http://www.tcnj.edu/~odyssey/essays.html 

    The best history of this phrase is an article by R. 
    Rutherford-Dyer, "Homer's Wine-Dark Sea", Greece & 
    Rome, v. 30 (October 1983), p. 125-128.   

    Homer's Greek for "wine-dark" is oinos, an expression 
    that translates to something like "sunset-red."  

    It occurs in the Iliad when Achilles, after Patroclus' 
    funeral, is looking out over the water with the sun 
    going down, in the Odyssey when Telemachus sails all 
    night to Pylos, and when Odysseus' ship is destroyed 
    in a storm.  

    It is translated in many ways, such as "wine-blue" in 
    Richard Lattimore's version, and scholars had thought 
    it a romantic nonsense phrase.  

    Rutherford-Dyer happened to be on the coast of Maine 
    when Mt. St. Helens erupted, and the sunsets became 
    quite glorious, turning the Atlantic to the color of 
    Mavrodaphni wine.  From that he reasoned that Homer 
    was describing the dark red sunsets that obtain when 
    large amounts of dust are in the air, or when storm 
    clouds are gathering.

from "The Wine-Dark Sea"; 
http://pages.towson.edu/colson/default_files/wine.htm 

Vincenzo

-- 
Martin G. Diehl

http://www.renderosity.com/gallery.ez?ByArtist=Yes&Artist=MGD

Reality: That which remains after you stop thinking about it.
  inspired by P. K. Dick