Before writing was widespread, long narrative poems had to be preserved entirely in memory, and the poets who recited them relied on a toolkit of practical devices. Fixed phrases—an ocean always 'wine-dark,' a hero always 'swift-footed'—recurred whenever the meter required them, sparing the performer the labor of inventing fresh description on the spot. Scholars once read such repeated tags as evidence of a limited imagination or of careless composition. That judgment has softened. The formulas are now understood as the working machinery of live performance: interchangeable building blocks that let a singer assemble a line at speed while keeping the rhythm intact. Far from betraying a poverty of invention, the repeated epithets reveal a sophisticated craft tuned to the demands of an audience that listened rather than read.