This colour word is common in
Homer and other poetry. It refers to true black, of night (cf.
kappa 1287) and the colour of men (i.e. the Ethiopians; cf. (?)
Aeschylus,
Prometheus Bound 807 and
scholia), animals (e.g. Mycenaean
ke-ra-no of a horse or bull) and fish (
Oppian), but also (cf. scholion on
Homer, Iliad 9.6,
me/lan h)\ fobero/n or
frikto/n) to dark, murky or ominous things: the earth, Hades, the depths of the sea, storm clouds (cf.
kappa 1284), the river Danube (
Lycophron,
Alexandra 1336), waves, and blood (cf.
kappa 1285), especially, but not only, when issuing from a wound. The heart of a man may be
kelaino/n (Hesiod,
Shield 429), or his spirit
kelainw/pan (of Odysseus,
Sophocles,
Ajax 955, cf.
kappa 1288), cf.
kelaino/frwn, spoken by Orestes of his mother (
Aeschylus,
Eumenides 459).