Odyssey 4.431 · Book 4, lines 431–434
Dawn, and three men for the trap
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ἦμος δʼ ἠριγένεια φάνη ῥοδοδάκτυλος Ἠώς, καὶ τότε δὴ παρὰ θῖνα θαλάσσης εὐρυπόροιο ἤια πολλὰ θεοὺς γουνούμενος· αὐτὰρ ἑταίρους τρεῖς ἄγον, οἷσι μάλιστα πεποίθεα πᾶσαν ἐπʼ ἰθύν.
When early-born, rosy-fingered Dawn appeared, then I went along the shore of the wide-wayed sea, earnestly beseeching the gods; and I took three companions, in whom I trusted most for any enterprise.
Word by word
The setting
Morning comes to the island of Pharos. Menelaus goes down to the water to pray and picks the companions who will help him hold the sea-god.
A note on this passage
The famous dawn-formula opens the day of the ambush. Menelaus walks the beach praying, then chooses three men he trusts for any hard undertaking. Everything is in order: the rite, the picked hands, the plan.
The undercurrent is the gap the formula leaves. 'Rosy-fingered Dawn' is serene, unhurried, the same line that opens a hundred untroubled mornings — and it stands over a morning whose business is to jump a god and hold him through fire and flood. The epithet does not know what the day holds. That calm surface over a braced, fearful undertaking is exactly the poem's habit.
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