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Rose-Fingered Dawn and the Idea of Time
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 04 July 2014
Extract
A common view among scholars is that Homer's verse, ‘When the early-born (ērigeneia), rose-fingered (rhododaktylos) dawn appeared’, is a conventional standard phrase used by Homer to say ‘when the day broke out’. In this they of course follow Milman Parry who illustrated with this very phrase his famous definition of formula.
This implies that we have here a mere piece of compositional technique. The poetic value of the phrase is either disregarded or taken for granted. It is seen, at best, as a good instance of artistic craft—as one of those countless formulas which make up Homeric verse.
It is my contention that the phrase reflects a mode of perception and thought. Technique, compositional device, style are but the outcome of a way in which things are visualized and expressed. The phrase must thus be explained on the strength of a deeper poetic reason, it must be appreciated both in its intrinsic value and in its relation to the context. In order to do this, let us look at its occurrences, and then at what these occurrences imply as regards the conception of the poems as a whole.
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- Copyright © Aureal Publications 1979
References
1 The Making of Homeric Verse (Oxford, 1971Google Scholar), 13f., cf. 76.
2 For an appreciation to the contrary, see Austin, Norman, Archery at the Dark of the Moon, Poetic Problems in Homer’s Odyssey (Berkeley, 1975), 67Google Scholar.
3 I give the sense of touch to ‘finger’ in the epithet rhododaktylos. Compare Iris aellopos, ‘storm-footed Iris’. Just as in rhododaktylos the finger conveys touch, in aellopos the foot conveys movement. The noun’s meaning does not simply denote an objective feature; it also implies action. The names of parts of the body are good instances: thus, in Greek poetry, ‘foot’ can by itself have the meaning of ‘motion’, ‘journey’ (e.g. Il.9.523, Aesch. Septem 374). Hence rhododaktylos gives us a palpable sense of the natural phenomenon through human connotations. See Leumann, M., Homerische Wörter (Basel, 1950), 18Google Scholar. For the sense of touch, compare Il.7.421: ‘The sun was freshly striking (prose-ballen) the fields’. In Hamlet, 4.1.29f.: ‘The sun no sooner shall the mountains touch/but we will ship him hence’.
4 Cf. N. Austin (n. 2 above), 67.
5 We could not find anything like, e.g., ‘at once (autika) early-born, rose-fingered rhododaktylos) dawn appeared’, or ‘when dawn came rising up lovely-throned (euthronos)’. This would produce an intolerable use of words displaced from their pertinent contexts—removed, that is to say, from the existential relation which they underline. So, for instance, rhododaktylos (‘rose-fingered’) may never be interchanged with chrysothronos (‘golden-throned’) in spite of metrical equivalence.
6 JrFinley, J. H.., Homer’s Odyssey (Cambridge, Mass., and London, 1978), 15CrossRefGoogle Scholar.
7 Arend, W., Die typischen Scenen bei Homer (Berlin, 1933), 25–27Google Scholar.