Expert: Maria - 12/15/2004

Question
Greetings,
I recently came across this quotation from Pindar:
        "And those who came to him
         with flesh-devouring sores,
         with limbs gored by gray bronze.."
I am puzzled by the use of the word "gray" to describe bronze. Any Bronze I've ever seen ranged from yellow to brown in color.
Is it the case that the Classical Greek language used a narrower range of color words than we have in English?
Thanks for your help.
Ken Anderson

Answer
Hello,

Actually in ancient Greek the colour words are more or less identical to the English  language.

As for the Greek adjective ‘polios' which has been translated as ‘ grey' in the passage you mention, it means ‘white-haired, grey-haired, grizzled', if it refers to a man, while it means simply  ‘grey' if it refers to bronze, or also to the wolves and poetically to the sea (see Homer's Iliad, passim).

The poet Pindar in his Pythian 3 probably used this adjective to  indicate the alloy of copper and tin, i.e. bronze, where probably there was a  smaller quantity of copper and a greater  quantity of tin which is  just  a silvery-white metal.

Therefore that bronze  weapon mentioned in the line “with limbs gored by gray bronze  “(Greek, “poliôi chalkôi melê tetrômenoi “) was probably more  grey than brown.

Hope this is clear enough.
Best regards
Maria