Omniana/Volume 1/Picturesque words
97. Picturesque Words.
Who is ignorant of Homer's Πηλιον εινοσι ευλλον? Yet in some Greek Hexameters (MSS) we have met with a compound epithet, which may compete with it for the prize of excellence in "flashing on the mental eye" a complete image—It is an epithet of the brutified archangel (see p. 12) and forms the latter half of the Hexameter.
Κεϱϰοϰεϱώνυχα Σᾶταν.
Ye youthful bards! compare this word with it's literal translation, "Tail-horn-hoofed Satan" and be shy of compound epithets, the component parts of which are indebted for their union exclusively to the printer's hyphen. Henry More indeed would have naturalized the word without hesitation, and Cercoceronychous would have shared the astonishment of the English reader in the glossary to his Song of the Soul, with Achronycul, Anaisthæsie, &c. &c.