Odyssey 10.541 · Book 10, lines 541–545
Golden-throned Dawn
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ὣς ἔφατʼ, αὐτίκα δὲ χρυσόθρονος ἤλυθεν Ἠώς. ἀμφὶ δέ με χλαῖνάν τε χιτῶνά τε εἵματα ἕσσεν· αὐτὴ δʼ ἀργύφεον φᾶρος μέγα ἕννυτο νύμφη, λεπτὸν καὶ χαρίεν, περὶ δὲ ζώνην βάλετʼ ἰξυῖ καλὴν χρυσείην, κεφαλῇ δʼ ἐπέθηκε καλύπτρην.
So she spoke, and at once golden-throned Dawn came. About me she put a cloak and tunic as clothing; and the nymph herself put on a great silver-white robe, light and graceful, and about her waist she cast a girdle, fair and golden, and on her head she set a veil.
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The setting
Odysseus, telling his tale to the Phaeacians, has just won Circe's promise to send him home after a year on her island. Now the last morning on Aiaia breaks, and the goddess herself dresses to see him off.
A note on this passage
The scene is a quiet, formal dressing. Dawn rises in her fixed epithet, Circe clothes Odysseus, then robes herself in silver-white with a golden girdle and a veil. Nothing is hurried; the language is the calm, ceremonial diction of a divine toilette.
The serenity is placed on purpose. This bright, careful morning is the threshold of the darkest journey in the poem, the road to the house of the dead. Homer lets the ordinary loveliness of daybreak and a goddess dressing stand undisturbed, so that the descent, when it is named, falls across a perfectly clear day.
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