Note 433 — Chapter V · THE MOST PROMINENT FIGURES IN HEBREW MYTHOLOGY. (continued 2)

Saḳt al-zand, I. 93. 1. These ideas of the relations of colours are found expressed with characteristic energy by the eccentric Persian poet Abû Isḥâḳ Ḥallâjî; he says, ‘When the Sun in the blue vault turns his cheek into yellow, it makes me think of saffron-coloured viands on an azure dish’ (Rückert, Grammatik, Poetik und Rhetorik der Perser, p. 126). The conception of turning grey combines that of both colours—the white appearing beside the black. According to Aġânî, II. 41. 7; those clouds which combine the two colours are called shîb ‘grey’ (al-saḥâʾib allatî fîhâ sawâd wa-bayâd).