Book 6
Question IX WHY DOES HOMER APPROPRIATE A CERTAIN PECULIAR EPITHET TO EACH PARTICULAR LIQUID, AND CALL OIL ALONE LIQUID?See Odyss. VI. 79 and 215. PLUTARCH AND OTHERS.
9.1
IT was the subject once of a discourse, why, when there are several sorts of liquids, the poet should give every one of them a peculiar epithet, calling milk white, honey yellow, wine red, and yet for all this bestow no other upon oil but what it hath in common with all other liquids. To this it was answered that, as that is said to be most sweet which is perfectly sweet, and to be most white which is perfectly white (I mean here by perfectly that which hath nothing of a contrary quality mixed with it), so that ought to be called perfectly humid whereof never a part is dry; and this is proper to oil.
