Homerphilia: Young Dawn & her rose-red Fingers
Over the month of March, the skies east of Izmir offered Homeric sunrises as spring clouds played in sunshine bringing to mind Homer's immortal images.
In mid-March my students were studying Book 17 of The Odyssey in Robert Fagles’s magnificent 1996 translation.
I usually spend part of the 1st period of the week, reading from the opening pages of the chapter to set the tone for the weeks’ study. On this particular day, I paused after the first line:
When young Dawn with her rose-red fingers shone once more (17.1)
“Did you all see the sunrise this morning?” I asked.
They had. We had all been on our way to school as the sun rose.
“That’s the same sunrise Homer is describing here,” I continued, “Did you see the ‘rose-red fingers’? Homer lived here in Izmir. He observed the same sunrise as we did — the same clouds, the same mountains. And he described it here in The Odyssey. Did you see this?”
For the next moments, the room was again full of sunrises and recollections of other pristine moments, until we continued with another common trope in The Odyssey:
Telemachus strapped his rawhide sandals to his feet
and the young rpine, the son of King Odysseus,
picked up the rugged spear that fit his grip… (17.2-4)
It was a classroom moment I won’t forget, sharing that vivid sunrise with 21st-century 15-year-olds and with a writer of the ages.
“The Sea at Dawn”
Every morning, I meet the bus at 7 a.m. and ride 55 minutes to my school.
The bus initially takes me westward, along the Gulf of Izmir toward the city of Güzelbahçe, where it picks up two of my colleagues, then returns eastward along the highway to my school.
Last November, I started a writing project that was set on the Aegean — on a ship carrying Agamemnon home from Troy an our before sunrise. I realized, as I imagined the scene, that I didn’t have a strong image of dawn in Izmir, even though I had lived here more than two years — I also realized that I had the perfect vantage point to illustrate sunrise, riding as I do on the bus from 7 to 8 every morning.
I began a note on my phone entitled “The Sea at Dawn,” and I scribbled observations over the course of the winter. Here are a few:
11/11 - Hazy blue gray, I can't see a horizon, save for the lights of the shops. No mountains...yet. I'm so lucky.... Every Day I get to see Dawn break over İzmir Bay.
+15 minutes — the gray and the Blue begin to separate: blue is seas, gray is sky. No horizon.4/12 - a lone, morning cloud pressed against the pale sky like a thumbprint
7/3 - a cloud shaped like a spear tip caught fire with the dawn, angry red, passionate purple. A pale, purple mountain loomed, it's guardian clouds ringed with fire.
Nothing in these musings comes close to Homer, but I’m inspired by the same sunrises he saw in his day, and I can’t help but try. (BELOW: a video I took from the front of the bus, driving eastward toward Izmir. The mountain blocking the sunrise is known as the Bozdağ (Mt. Tmolus, setting of many legends).
Dawn in The Odyssey
Among Homer’s bag of performance tricks were the stock phrases about personified Dawn that opened new scenes. A similar tool is used today in movies and TV shows, where an image of a boat sailing on the open sea, will transition the viewer to a scene set on a ship (which was probably filmed on a set far from shore).
Jason Kottke posted twenty occurrences of Dawn in Emily Wilson’s 2017 translation of The Odyssey, and I list them here for your enjoyment (in reality, Homer used the same, general phrase, so the variety here is a testament to the insight and creativity of the translator).
The early Dawn was born; her fingers bloomed.
When newborn Dawn appeared with rosy fingers…
When rosy-fingered Dawn came bright and early…
Soon Dawn was born, her fingers bright with roses.
When Dawn appeared, her fingers bright with flowers…
When early Dawn appeared and touched the sky with blossom…
Then Dawn rose up from bed with Lord Tithonus, to bring the light to deathless gods and mortals.
When vernal Dawn first touched the sky with flowers…
But when the Dawn with dazzling braids brought day for the third time…
Then Dawn came from her lovely throne, and woke the girl.
Soon Dawn appeared and touched the sky with roses.
When bright-haired Dawn brought the third morning…
When early Dawn shone forth with rosy fingers…
But when the rosy hands of Dawn appeared…
Early the Dawn appeared, pink fingers blooming…
When early Dawn revealed her rose-red hands…
Then when rose-fingered Dawn came, bright and early…
On the third morning brought by braided Dawn…
Then the roses of Dawn’s fingers appeared again…
Dawn on her golden throne began to shine…
When Dawn came, born early, with her fingertips like petals…
The golden throne of Dawn was riding up the sky…
When rose-fingered Dawn appeared…
Then Dawn was born again; her fingers bloomed…
Then all at once Dawn on her golden throne lit up the sky…
…Dawn soon arrived upon her throne.
When newborn Dawn appeared with hands of flowers…
When early Dawn, the newborn child with rosy hands, appeared…
As she said this, the golden Dawn arrived.
…she roused the newborn Dawn from Ocean’s streams to bring the golden light to those on earth.
Soon Dawn was born, her fingers bright with roses
The question I have pondered all spring: where did these images come from? Was Homer often on a ship, with a “fair wind keeping [his] sails well filled” (another repeated phrase)? Did he see them from an island in the middle of the sea?
After a deep study of the sunrise this spring, watching the sun come up over the Bozdağ — the mountain known in Homer’s time as Mount Tmolus — I think Izmir fits the setting from which such morning events could be composed. Sunrise is stunning here, but part of the beauty is the understanding that Dawn performs as Homer portrayed her only a few months out of every year.
(ABOVE: Dawn’s rosy vigures are captured in this sunrise video from Didim, source — Marina Klimenkova)
Dawn and Izmir’s Seasons
Izmir’s weather and location have a unique impact on the sunrise. For much of the year, from May through October, the skies are mostly clear. During the long, dry summers, dawn and dusk glow a bright orange, casting the mountains into purple shadow and achieving a kind of 2-dimensional effect — as if the sun rises and falls from behind cut-out purple-paper mountains along the sides of a tangerine-orange box.
The rainy season typically begins in mid-November two months of on-again showers and mixed sunrises. A short, sharp six-week winter stretches from the week before to the week after February.
But in mid-March the clouds return and linger daily on the horizon. This is the season Homer describes in the Odyssey. Among wispy clouds and jagged purple horizons, Dawn plays a daily symphony for everyone in the gulf to see.
The clouds are her fingers (or fingerprint, as I mentioned in one of my odes). Rays of sun are heralds. The Bozdağ is her throne.
If readers wish to share favorite sunrises — or their own ideal places to watch them, please comment below.
And if you have questions about The Odyssey that an Izmir-based Homer “fanboy” might answer, please post them!