Odyssey 8.1 · Book 8, lines 1–3
Dawn, and the two men rise
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ἦμος δʼ ἠριγένεια φάνη ῥοδοδάκτυλος Ἠώς, ὤρνυτʼ ἄρʼ ἐξ εὐνῆς ἱερὸν μένος Ἀλκινόοιο, ἂν δʼ ἄρα διογενὴς ὦρτο πτολίπορθος Ὀδυσσεύς.
When early-born rosy-fingered Dawn appeared, the sacred might of Alcinous rose from his bed, and up rose Zeus-born, city-sacking Odysseus.
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The setting
The morning after Odysseus, shipwrecked and still unnamed, has supplicated Arete and Alcinous in the Phaeacian palace. Book 8 opens on the next day, when the king will bring the stranger before the assembly.
A note on this passage
Book 8 begins the way Homer so often begins a day: with the formula of dawn. Rosy-fingered Dawn appears, and two men rise to meet her — the king Alcinous, named by the courtly periphrasis ‘the sacred might of Alcinous,’ and his still-nameless guest. The morning is the hinge; the assembly and the games are about to be set in motion.
The undercurrent is in the guest's epithets. To the Phaeacians he is an unknown castaway, but the poem names him over their heads: διογενής, ‘Zeus-born,’ and πτολίπορθος, ‘sacker of cities.’ That second word is his Iliadic war-title, the reputation of Troy, carried into a book of dance and song and welcome. We hear who he is a whole day before Scheria will.
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