Odyssey 5.228 · Book 5, lines 228–232
Dawn, and the two dress
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ἦμος δʼ ἠριγένεια φάνη ῥοδοδάκτυλος Ἠώς, αὐτίχʼ ὁ μὲν χλαῖνάν τε χιτῶνά τε ἕννυτʼ Ὀδυσσεύς, αὐτὴ δʼ ἀργύφεον φᾶρος μέγα ἕννυτο νύμφη, λεπτὸν καὶ χαρίεν, περὶ δὲ ζώνην βάλετʼ ἰξυῖ καλὴν χρυσείην, κεφαλῇ δʼ ἐφύπερθε καλύπτρην.
And when early-born Dawn appeared, rosy-fingered Dawn, at once Odysseus put on a cloak and a tunic, and the nymph herself clad herself in a great silvery mantle, fine and graceful; around her waist she cast a girdle, a beautiful golden one, and on her head over it a veil.
Word by word
The setting
A new day, marked by the poem's most famous line-opening — 'rosy-fingered Dawn.' The arming-type scene begins, but domestic: not armor but everyday clothes, as Odysseus and the nymph dress for the day the raft is built.
A note on this passage
Morning comes with the formula every reader of Homer knows, and the two dress. Odysseus puts on the plain traveller's cloak and tunic; Calypso arrays herself far more richly — a shimmering white mantle, a golden girdle, a veil — the goddess still dressing like a bride even as she prepares to send her guest away.
The undercurrent is how the poem uses the dressing. This is the frame of a Homeric arming scene, the ritual gearing-up before a great action — but the action is carpentry, and the 'weapons' are an axe and an adze. Calypso's costly finery sets off the modesty of his: he wants nothing she can give but the tools, and she meets his leaving with the care of someone who will not be seen to grieve.
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