Abstract
Throughout the Metamorphoses Ovid draws special attention to the colors red and white. Red (rubor, rutilus, rubesco, puniceus, purpureus, ‘ red ’ or ‘purple ’) is, of course, the color of blood, of a blush, of ripening fruit, Tyrean dye, and the sky at dawn. White is the color of marble, ivory, lilies, and the sky at noon. If we examine this pair in erotic contexts, however, we will find that white is associated with innocence and chastity, with the frigid absence of sexual feeling and with emotional and physical death. Red is associated with pudor, that sense of shame that afflicts the innocent whose eyes have just been opened to erotic reality, and with the heat of violence, both the violence of feeling (furor) and the violence of rape.
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