Odyssey 5.1 · Book 5, lines 1–4
Dawn, and the gods in council
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Ἠὼς δʼ ἐκ λεχέων παρʼ ἀγαυοῦ Τιθωνοῖο ὤρνυθʼ, ἵνʼ ἀθανάτοισι φόως φέροι ἠδὲ βροτοῖσιν· οἱ δὲ θεοὶ θῶκόνδε καθίζανον ἐν δʼ ἄρα τοῖσι Ζεὺς ὑψιβρεμέτης, οὗ τε κράτος ἐστὶ μέγιστον.
And Dawn rose from her bed, beside noble Tithonus, to bring light to the immortals and to mortals; and the gods were sitting down to session, and among them Zeus the high-thunderer, whose might is greatest.
Word by word
The setting
Book 5 opens back on Olympus. Four books have followed Telemachus; now the poem turns to the gods to set Odysseus's rescue moving. The day begins with the formulaic sunrise — Dawn leaving the bed of her mortal husband Tithonus — before the divine assembly gathers.
A note on this passage
A standard epic morning opens the book: Dawn rises to bring light to gods and men, the gods take their seats for council, and Zeus sits greatest among them. It is pure scene-setting, the machinery of a divine assembly rolled into place.
But Dawn rises from the bed of Tithonus, and the name carries a warning. He is the mortal she loved and had made deathless — and then could not keep young, so that he withered on and on, unable to die. The book that opens here is the one where Odysseus refuses exactly that gift from Calypso. The deathless goddess leaves her aged, unkillable husband at the very dawn of the day Odysseus chooses mortality.
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