Saturday, November 16, 2024
Pale Women and Dark Men
Homer, Iliad Book One. Edited with an Introduction, Translation, and Commentary by Simon Pulleyn (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2000), pp. 140-141 (on line 55 θεὰ λευκώλενος Ἥρη = goddess white-armed Hera):
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That Hera is white-armed is, of course, part of the formulaic tradition. It does not belong exclusively to Hera; it is used of Helen at 3.121 and of Andromache at 24.723. When Athene transforms Odysseus back to his usual form, the poet says that his skin took on its usual dark colour (μελαγχροιής, Od. 16.175). This distinction between pale women and dark men was an aesthetic one in Homer; Greek vase-painting of the eighth and seventh centuries shows women’s skin as white and that of men as reddish-brown. [Later sources say that having white skin was unusual and the result either of the use of cosmetics (Xen. Oec. 10 .2) or of deliberately staying indoors (Eur. Bacch. 457).] No doubt upper-class men valued paleness in their women since it showed they did not have to engage in outdoor manual work.Related posts:
