Odyssey 4.306 · Book 4, lines 306–311
Menelaus rises with the dawn
Read the full text in our reader
ἦμος δʼ ἠριγένεια φάνη ῥοδοδάκτυλος Ἠώς, ὤρνυτʼ ἄρʼ ἐξ εὐνῆφι βοὴν ἀγαθὸς Μενέλαος εἵματα ἑσσάμενος, περὶ δὲ ξίφος ὀξὺ θέτʼ ὤμῳ, ποσσὶ δʼ ὑπὸ λιπαροῖσιν ἐδήσατο καλὰ πέδιλα, βῆ δʼ ἴμεν ἐκ θαλάμοιο θεῷ ἐναλίγκιος ἄντην, Τηλεμάχῳ δὲ παρῖζεν, ἔπος τʼ ἔφατʼ ἔκ τʼ ὀνόμαζεν·
And when early-born, rosy-fingered Dawn appeared, Menelaus, good at the war-cry, rose from his bed, put on his clothes, slung a sharp sword about his shoulder, and bound fair sandals beneath his shining feet. He went forth from his chamber, like a god to look upon, sat down beside Telemachus, and spoke a word, and addressed him:
Word by word
The setting
Morning comes to Sparta. Menelaus wakes, dresses and arms in the fixed order of an epic 'rising' scene, and comes to sit beside his young guest Telemachus to ask his errand.
A note on this passage
A type-scene: the hero's rising, told in the same set moves the poem uses every morning — dress, sword, sandals, then out the door. "Rosy-fingered Dawn" opens it, the most familiar line in Homer. The details are formulaic, but they carry weight: the king arms even to cross his own house, and comes to his guest in person.
The sword is the quiet note. Menelaus straps on a blade merely to walk down the hall and greet a boy — the reflex of a man who has lived by war and cannot quite lay it down. He is "good at the war-cry," a fighter's epithet, worn now by a settled householder at peace. The formula remembers what the man was.
Read the full commentary — and tap any word for its dictionary entry — in the interlinear reader.
Open Odyssey 4.306 in the full reader
Always open passages in the reader
From the Great Library
You are reading a page of the Odyssey — the whole book is free in our interlinear reader.
The Great Library Project presses the classics in their original languages, glossed word by word — free to read, always. Browse the whole library.
Also on our shelves:
Odyssey 4.306 — The Great Library Project interlinear edition · greatlibraryproject.com/book/odyssey/4.306/