Odyssey 9.307 · Book 9, lines 307–311
Dawn, and two more devoured
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ἦμος δʼ ἠριγένεια φάνη ῥοδοδάκτυλος Ἠώς, καὶ τότε πῦρ ἀνέκαιε καὶ ἤμελγε κλυτὰ μῆλα, πάντα κατὰ μοῖραν, καὶ ὑπʼ ἔμβρυον ἧκεν ἑκάστῃ. αὐτὰρ ἐπεὶ δὴ σπεῦσε πονησάμενος τὰ ἃ ἔργα, σὺν δʼ ὅ γε δὴ αὖτε δύω μάρψας ὡπλίσσατο δεῖπνον.
And when early-born rosy-fingered Dawn appeared, then he kindled a fire and milked his fine flocks, all in due order, and set a suckling under each. But when he had hastened, working at his own tasks, then once more he seized two of my men and made ready his meal.
Word by word
The setting
Morning in the cave of Polyphemus. The giant wakes to his shepherd's routine before turning, again, to his prisoners.
A note on this passage
Dawn comes, and the giant's morning is pure animal husbandry: he kindles fire, milks the ewes, sets each lamb to its mother, everything done “in due order.” Only then, his chores finished, does he snatch two more men and make his meal.
The horror is in the domesticity. The same hands that do the tender, exact work of a shepherd — κατὰ μοῖραν, “by due measure,” the very phrase for rightness — reach out and seize two men for breakfast. Homer sets the cannibal feast inside an ordinary, orderly morning; the monster keeps a tidy farm, and that is what makes him monstrous.
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