>'"the wine-dark sea"...well it doesn't mean anything like you could imagine, for their whole model of colour utterly different from ours.'
Doesn't seem like everyone agrees with this speculation:
>"I'm even less impressed by Gordon's argument: it relies on oinops meaning 'wine-dark'. The trouble is, that's not a firm foundation. Strictly literally, the phrase straightforwardly means 'wine-faced sea', from οἶνος 'wine' + ὄψ 'face'."http://kiwihellenist.blogspot.com/2016/01/colours-in-homer-2...
Indeed, these things are complex and incomplete. However I mentioned it as a non-obvious example of how we can be lured into inaccurate interpretations due to our contemporary assumptions.
(by the way I say "inaccurate" but not "wrong" as the point of contemporary reading of classic texts (or any text) is to find insights into your own states, unless you're a historian or historiographer).
It seems more likely to be a translation issue to me. This is the first I've heard of it but I'd guess "wine-faced" refers to the shimmering surface rather than the color.
Doesn't seem like everyone agrees with this speculation:
>"I'm even less impressed by Gordon's argument: it relies on oinops meaning 'wine-dark'. The trouble is, that's not a firm foundation. Strictly literally, the phrase straightforwardly means 'wine-faced sea', from οἶνος 'wine' + ὄψ 'face'." http://kiwihellenist.blogspot.com/2016/01/colours-in-homer-2...