Tracking the Appearances of “Rosy-Fingered Dawn” in The Odyssey
I had been slowly making my way through Emily Wilson’s translation of The Odyssey, but on the advice of a Twitter pal, I backtracked and started reading it aloud to my kids. Which has been amazing…reading this story out loud really feels like we’re harkening back to the time of Homer.
One of the things we’re discussing as we go along are the repeated epithets…the descriptions of gods and people that are used over and over in the poem. Zeus is often not just Zeus — he is “the great Thunderlord Zeus” — and Dawn (the Greek goddess of the dawn) is almost never just Dawn, as Wilson explains in the introduction:
Dawn appears some twenty times in The Odyssey, and the poem repeats the same line, word for word, each time: emos d’erigeneia phane rhododaktulos eos: “But when early-born rosy-fingered Dawn appeared…” There is a vast array of such formulaic expressions in Homeric verse, which suggest that things have an eternal, infinitely repeatable presence. Different things will happen every day, but Dawn always appears, always with rosy fingers, always early.
Wilson combats this precise repetition, which can sound antiquated to modern ears, by varying the epithets according to the context:
The formulaic elements in Homer, especially the repeated epithets, pose a particular challenge. The epithets applied to Dawn, Athena, Hermes, Zeus, Penelope, Telemachus, Odysseus, and the suitors repeat over and over in the original. But in my version, I have chosen deliberately to interpret these epithets in several different ways, depending on the demands of the scene at hand. I do not want to deceive the unsuspecting reader about the nature of the original poem; rather, I hope to be truthful about my own text — its relationships with its readers and with the original. In an oral or semiliterate culture, repeated epithets give a listener an anchor in a quick-moving story. In a highly literate society such as our own, repetitions are likely to feel like moments to skip. They can be a mark of writerly laziness or unwillingness to acknowledge one’s own interpretative position, and can send a reader to sleep. I have used the opportunity offered by the repetitions to explore the multiple different connotations of each epithet.
The appearance of Dawn has already become a source of comic relief while we’re reading — “here she is again, with the roses!” — and I was curious to see Wilson’s differing interpretations, I gathered all the appearances of Dawn from the text:
The early Dawn was born; her fingers bloomed.
When newborn Dawn appeared with rosy fingers…
When rosy-fingered Dawn came bright and early…
Soon Dawn was born, her fingers bright with roses.
When Dawn appeared, her fingers bright with flowers…
When early Dawn appeared and touched the sky with blossom…
Then Dawn rose up from bed with Lord Tithonus, to bring the light to deathless gods and mortals.
When vernal Dawn first touched the sky with flowers…
But when the Dawn with dazzling braids brought day for the third time…
Then Dawn came from her lovely throne, and woke the girl.
Soon Dawn appeared and touched the sky with roses.
When bright-haired Dawn brought the third morning…
When early Dawn shone forth with rosy fingers…
But when the rosy hands of Dawn appeared…
Early the Dawn appeared, pink fingers blooming…
When early Dawn revealed her rose-red hands…
Then when rose-fingered Dawn came, bright and early…
On the third morning brought by braided Dawn…
Then the roses of Dawn’s fingers appeared again…
Dawn on her golden throne began to shine…
When Dawn came, born early, with her fingertips like petals…
The golden throne of Dawn was riding up the sky…
When rose-fingered Dawn appeared…
Then Dawn was born again; her fingers bloomed…
Then all at once Dawn on her golden throne lit up the sky…
…Dawn soon arrived upon her throne.
When newborn Dawn appeared with hands of flowers…
When early Dawn, the newborn child with rosy hands, appeared…
As she said this, the golden Dawn arrived.
…she roused the newborn Dawn from Ocean’s streams to bring the golden light to those on earth.
I think my favorite is probably “Soon Dawn was born, her fingers bright with roses” but I also appreciate the very first appearance in the text: “The early Dawn was born; her fingers bloomed”. Either way, what a great illustration of Wilson’s skill & the creative latitude involved in translation, along with a reminder for writers of the many different ways in which you can essentially say the same thing.
(The sunrise photo is from my Instagram.)
Stay Connected