We have Homer, the best of all painters,
éven in the presence of Euphranor and Apelles.
Let her be throughout of a colour like that which
Homer gave to the thighs of Menelaus when he
likened them to ivory tinged with crimson; Iliad 4, 141 sqq. and
let him also paint the eyes and make her “ox-eyed.”
The Theban poet, too, shall lend him a hand in the
work, to give her ‘violet brows.” Pindar ; the poem in which he applied this epithet to Aphrodite (cf. p. 333) is lost. Yes, and
Homer shall make her “laughter-loving” and
“white-armed" and “rosy-fingered,” and, in a word,
shall liken her to golden Aphrodite far more fittingly
than he did the daughter of Briseus. Iliad 19, 282.