"Silver-footed"?

Lenona

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Jan 13, 2012, 2:53:23 PM1/13/12

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The goddess Thetis was described as such.

I used to think it meant she was wearing silver sandals, but someone
else said it meant she was swift - "silver" being short for
"quicksilver," maybe. Googling didn't help - does anyone know?

Lenona,

Peter Duncanson (BrE)

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Jan 13, 2012, 3:49:37 PM1/13/12

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On Fri, 13 Jan 2012 11:53:23 -0800 (PST), Lenona <leno...@yahoo.com>
wrote:

This says that the her Greek epithet transliterated as "Argyropeza"
literally means Silver-Footed. That could mean the colour of her feet
was silver or that she wore footwear made of Silver or that she wore
silver-coloured footwear.

I don't think there can be any connection with quicksilver. The name
"Quicksilver" for the element Mercury seems to have origniated in West
European languages hundreds of years after the goddess Thetis was named
"silver-footed".

Various quotations on that page support different interpretations of
"silver-footed".

Suidas s.v. Argyropeza (trans. Suda On Line) (Byzantine Greek
Lexicon C10th A.D.) :"Argyropeza (silver-footed): She who has a
silver foot. For peza [is] the foot."

Homeric Hymn 3 to Pythian Apollo 319 ff (trans. Evelyn-White) (Greek
epic C7th - 4th B.C.) : "[Hera addresses Zeus:] ‘My son Hephaistos
(Hephaestus) whom I bare . . . I myself took in my hands and cast
out so that he fell in the great sea. But silver-shod Thetis the
daughter of Nereus took and cared for him with her sisters: would
that she had done other service for the blessed gods.’"

--
Peter Duncanson, UK
(in alt.english.usage)

Peter Duncanson (BrE)

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Jan 13, 2012, 4:29:31 PM1/13/12

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On Fri, 13 Jan 2012 20:49:37 +0000, "Peter Duncanson (BrE)"
<ma...@peterduncanson.net> wrote:

>On Fri, 13 Jan 2012 11:53:23 -0800 (PST), Lenona <leno...@yahoo.com>
>wrote:
>
>>
>>The goddess Thetis was described as such.
>>
>>I used to think it meant she was wearing silver sandals, but someone
>>else said it meant she was swift - "silver" being short for
>>"quicksilver," maybe. Googling didn't help - does anyone know?
>>
>>Lenona,
>
>This says that the her Greek epithet transliterated as "Argyropeza"
>literally means Silver-Footed. That could mean the colour of her feet
>was silver or that she wore footwear made of Silver or that she wore
>silver-coloured footwear.

http://www.theoi.com/Pontios/NereisThetis.html

Daniel James

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Jan 14, 2012, 10:43:49 AM1/14/12

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In article <a72ebcac-852c-406c-bb6a-
500de1...@m4g2000pbc.googlegroups.com>, Lenona wrote:

> subject: "Silver-footed"?

> The goddess Thetis was described as such.

I wonder whether that is supposed to be taken in the same way as
"silver-tongued"? That would then mean that Thetis was supposed to be
very quick and nimble on her feet.

See: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Epithets_in_Homer

Cheers,
Daniel.

Don Phillipson

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Jan 15, 2012, 2:11:21 PM1/15/12

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"Daniel James" <dan...@me.invalid> wrote in message
news:VA.0000057...@me.invalid...

>> subject: "Silver-footed"?
>> The goddess Thetis was described as such.
>
> I wonder whether that is supposed to be taken in the same way as
> "silver-tongued"? That would then mean that Thetis was supposed to be
> very quick and nimble on her feet.
>
> See: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Epithets_in_Homer

But the Wiki article suggests unambiguously these
epithets are usually literal and permanent (i.e. Achilles
remains the swift-footed son of Peleus even when he
is in bed asleep.)

--
Don Phillipson
Carlsbad Springs
(Ottawa, Canada)

Jerry Avins

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Jan 15, 2012, 5:53:33 PM1/15/12

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In Homer we also have the wine-dark sea, rosy fingered dawn, and more
The fixed epithet is a standard feature not only in Homer, but in other
epic poems with Oral origins. (It is not for nothing that Mnemosyne is
the mother of the muses and herself the muse of memory.)

Jerry
--
Engineering is the art of making what you want from things you can get.
¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯

Joel Olson

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Jan 16, 2012, 7:40:17 AM1/16/12

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"Jerry Avins" <j...@ieee.org> wrote in message
news:INIQq.120$TK6...@newsfe14.iad...

McLuhan, I think, in one of those books of collected papers by various
authors, wrote about how those epithets worked to make the characters
larger than life. Formulas to give them "attributes", almost.

Joel Olson

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Jan 16, 2012, 7:40:55 AM1/16/12

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"Lenona" <leno...@yahoo.com> wrote in message
news:a72ebcac-852c-406c...@m4g2000pbc.googlegroups.com...

I suppose that was before nail polish was developed. :-(

Ian Jackson

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Jan 16, 2012, 7:56:35 AM1/16/12

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In message <jev8d4$q9o$4...@speranza.aioe.org>, Don Phillipson
<e9...@SPAMBLOCK.ncf.ca> writes

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jay_Silverheels
?????
--
Ian

Jack Campin

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Jan 16, 2012, 9:34:38 AM1/16/12

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She was a goddess of the sea, so I'd guess silvery water was meant.

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Joel Olson

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Jan 17, 2012, 7:09:28 AM1/17/12

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"Ian Jackson" <ianREMOVET...@g3ohx.demon.co.uk> wrote in message
news:M0n9sMED...@g3ohx.demon.co.uk...

aka 'Tonto'. American aborigines naming practices were very
individualistic. And definitely neither matri- nor patrilineal.

ala

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Feb 4, 2012, 7:45:48 PM2/4/12

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"Jack Campin" <bo...@purr.demon.co.uk> wrote in message
news:bogus-9391AF....@four.schnuerpel.eu...

>> The goddess Thetis was described as such.
>>
>> I used to think it meant she was wearing silver sandals, but someone
>> else said it meant she was swift - "silver" being short for
>> "quicksilver," maybe. Googling didn't help - does anyone know?
>
> She was a goddess of the sea, so I'd guess silvery water was meant.
>

I would think her feets would be covered by smelly seaweed and broken
shells

ala

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Feb 4, 2012, 7:51:32 PM2/4/12

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"Don Phillipson" <e9...@SPAMBLOCK.ncf.ca> wrote in message
news:jev8d4$q9o$4...@speranza.aioe.org...

Apparently the ancients were foot fetishists

ala

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Feb 4, 2012, 8:47:20 PM2/4/12

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"Lenona" <leno...@yahoo.com> wrote in message
news:a72ebcac-852c-406c...@m4g2000pbc.googlegroups.com...
>

maybe because her image was on a silver drachma?

JOHNS...@warren.k12.in.us

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Sep 27, 2018, 9:08:14 AM9/27/18

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I think that it means quick and swift because when I searched it on google it said that so

CDB

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Sep 28, 2018, 4:22:40 PM9/28/18

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I haven't seen anything that suggested Thetis was a fast runner like her
son, Swift-Footed Achilles.

Two other possibilities occur to me. She was a sea-deity, and might have
been pictured with silver surf at her feet -- rising from the waves,
like. And Wikipedia suggests that she was more important in archaic
religion than under the later Olympian system, so the epithet might be
an old one, referring to a silver-footed effigy or to stories that were
lost later on. All guesses, of course.