Odyssey 3.404 · Book 3, lines 404–406
Dawn, and Nestor takes his seat
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ἦμος δʼ ἠριγένεια φάνη ῥοδοδάκτυλος Ἠώς, ὤρνυτʼ ἄρʼ ἐξ εὐνῆφι Γερήνιος ἱππότα Νέστωρ, ἐκ δʼ ἐλθὼν κατʼ ἄρʼ ἕζετʼ ἐπὶ ξεστοῖσι λίθοισιν,
And when rosy-fingered Dawn, early-born, appeared, the Gerenian horseman Nestor rose from his bed, and coming out sat down upon the polished stones,
Word by word
The setting
Morning comes to Pylos. Old Nestor rises before the household and goes out to take his accustomed place on the smooth stones before the palace gates.
A note on this passage
A new day. The dawn-formula turns the poem toward morning, and old Nestor is the first up: he rises from bed, walks out, and settles onto the smooth stones set before his gates — the patriarch's public seat.
The famous line — 'rosy-fingered Dawn' — is a fixed phrase the poem can lay over any morning. Here it falls on a house entirely at peace, its master rising unhurried to take his customary seat in the open. The formula's serenity is not ironic this time; it simply measures the calm of Pylos, a settled order the next lines will root deep in the family's past.
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