Odyssey 9.436 · Book 9, lines 436–439
Rosy-fingered Dawn
Read the full text in our reader
ὣς τότε μὲν στενάχοντες ἐμείναμεν Ἠῶ δῖαν. ἦμος δʼ ἠριγένεια φάνη ῥοδοδάκτυλος Ἠώς, καὶ τότʼ ἔπειτα νομόνδʼ ἐξέσσυτο ἄρσενα μῆλα, θήλειαι δὲ μέμηκον ἀνήμελκτοι περὶ σηκούς·
So then, groaning, we waited for the bright Dawn. And when early-born Dawn appeared, rosy-fingered, then thereupon the male animals rushed out to pasture, and the females, unmilked, bleated about the pens,
Word by word
The setting
The men hang under the rams through the night, groaning, waiting for morning. When dawn comes, the giant's male animals bolt out to graze, while the unmilked ewes bleat in pain around the pens.
A note on this passage
A night of held breath, then daybreak in the poem's most famous formula: 'early-born, rosy-fingered Dawn.' The rams stir and bolt for pasture, carrying their hidden riders; the ewes, left unmilked, cry around the fold. The whole plan now depends on ordinary animal routine.
The undercurrent is the gap between the serene formula and the scene it lights. Rosy-fingered Dawn opens countless mornings in Homer, most of them calm; here it rises over men clenched under bellies of wool, a few feet from a maddened giant. And the small, true detail of the unmilked ewes bleating is the cost of the blinding made audible — the cave's blind master can no longer keep his own household running.
Read the full commentary — and tap any word for its dictionary entry — in the interlinear reader.
Open Odyssey 9.436 in the full reader
Always open passages in the reader
From the Great Library
You are reading a page of the Odyssey — the whole book is free in our interlinear reader.
The Great Library Project presses the classics in their original languages, glossed word by word — free to read, always. Browse the whole library.
Also on our shelves:
Odyssey 9.436 — The Great Library Project interlinear edition · greatlibraryproject.com/book/odyssey/9.436/