12-DAWN-FINAL
The first person I remember ever reading the Odyssey was my friend Lisa when we were in 7th grade. We were the kind of kids who dove into Dostoyevski and the Pickwick Papers and Homer and as my husband has accurately said, we were the kids who. Always got picked last at kickball. But I vividly remember her reading this particular edition. It's the mentor paperback, translated by WHD Rouse, and I picked up a copy on eBay. A while ago. It's a very pleasant sort of chatty translation. And I asked her, you know, how how is it? How is that book? I've heard all I've heard a lot about it. How is it? And she said if I hear one more mention of rosy fingered dawn, I'm going to throw this book across the room. And that was a sentence that stuck with me. I didn't read the odyssey. Myself for many years after that, but. Her words came back to me almost immediately. Rosy fingered Dawn is one of the most important or certainly one of the most frequently mentioned characters in the Odyssey, and since we haven't mentioned her at all, today's episode is going to be dedicated to ῥοδοδάκτυλος Ἠώς rosy fingered dawn. Hello, I'm Tom Lee and this is the odyssey odyssey, the podcast that retells the story of the Odyssey and all the stories that surround the story, the stories that connect with lead up to and away from the Odyssey. And today's episode is a perfect. Example of that because the whole thing is going to build off of a a single line in book five of the Odyssey. When I first started playing around with ancient Greek, that was the the first sentence that I wanted to talk about with my my tutor. ἦμος δ' ἠριγένεια φάνη ῥοδοδάκτυλος Ἠώς As soon as early born, rosy fingered Dawn appeared that exact sentence in those exact words occurs 19 times. In the Odyssey, it repeats and repeats every time a new day dawns, we hear about rosy fingered dawn and it never changes. There are one or two slight variations in addition to those 19 occurrences of that exact sentence. So there's this very strong. Link in my mind, between dawn and the poem. Of the odyssey. And when I first was reading the poem, it struck me as kind of strange that you had. A. A goddess of dawn. Because there's of course there's the God of the sun. Helios is the God of the sun, and he rides famously in his chariot across the sky. And I was thought it was. Strange that the ancient Greeks differentiated between a God for the dawn and a God for the sun. Isn't dawn just the beginning of the sun? But then there came a. Huge change in my life when I discovered 5:00 o'clock in the morning, which was. Like finding a I don't know a 52nd state in the country or or another room in your house that you that you never knew about. Early morning has become for me one of the most important times of the day and and some of the most important times. Of my life. And this connection to the early morning. Started I can pinpoint it to a beach in Truro, on Cape Cod in Massachusetts, and it was the first time that I went before dawn to the beach. It would have been about 4:30 in the morning. And stood in total darkness and waited for the sun to come up and the the magnificent thing about sunrise in Truro is that the sun. Appears to emerge directly out of the ocean. It there's nothing on the horizon. It's just the horizon line to see and the sun appears, but you probably know this, but it was a big discovery for me. How long it takes for the sun to come up. After the dawn begins to work its magic, Tennyson talks about the Mystic change. To feel your. Blood glow with the glow that slowly crimsons all. And then after this long anticipation, the the sun. Just breaks over the horizon and and rises into the sky. And that became one of the most important rituals in my life. I've spent dozens, maybe hundreds of mornings. I don't know, standing on that beach, waiting for the sun to come up. Ultimately, I think this fascination with the moment of sunrise. Is the way it connects with. All of time. I think about the fact that the sun has risen every day that the earth has existed. When I'm talking to kids about ancient Greece and I'm trying to get them to wrap their minds around the concept of 2 1/2 thousand years. It's fun to try to break that down into individual days. I talk about how many days they have been alive, how many days their grandparents have been alive. And then to think that to connect back? 2 1/2 thousand years. It's just that many sunrises and that's give or take 913,125 sun rises and every time you stand on the beach you add one and every time I do I think about. I think in a way. Those moments of the beach are the the source of this idea for for this podcast, because to look out at the ocean under that Rolo, Dr. Los Eos, under rosy fingered dawn. I'm always thinking about. I'm thinking about him, where he was at the end of the last episode. I think about those two days where he's. Floating in the ocean that. He has no ship, he has nothing and. He he stays. In the sea for two days, which means that he sees rosy fingered dawn appear two times in a row. But the really interesting thing about. ῥοδοδάκτυλος Ἠώς in book 5 is that that's one of the times that that sentence. Is changed by the poet. Instead of just. Telling us that early born rosy fingered dawn appeared. We learned that. Rosy fingered Dawn rose from her bed beside Lord Tithonus to bring light to mortals and immortals. OK, who is Lord Tithonus and what is he doing in bed with? Well, guess what? There's a story about that. And what's fascinating about that sentence and that place in the poem is that in book 5, Calypso is going to talk about all the times that gods have mated with human. Woman and how it always seems to be forbidden for goddesses to mate or love human men and. Dawn – Eos - is a wonderful example of this. A wonderful case in point. There's a story and it's it's referenced just a few times casually by some of the ancient writers that dawn was cursed by Aphrodite, the goddess of love. On whose wrong side you. Do not want to be. But Dawn went to bed with Aphrodite's husband, Aries and Aphrodite, caught them. In the act. And as a result, she cursed Eos dawn with a constant, unquenchable lust for young men. And it's fascinating, of course, that the thing that most of the gods are doing most of the time in most mythology, which is pursuing the love of of women, that this becomes a curse for poor Eos that she is cursed with this desire to constantly be pursued. Doing young men Don is a subject on a lot of pots from Athens, from around 500 BC, and she's always depicted the same way. She has wings on her back. Her arms are straight out and she's running, chasing after some young man. Usually there's an indication that he's. A schoolboy or a musician, he might have a liar in his hands and she chasing after him and he's running away from her and I don't know. It's kind of sad when you see a bunch of the. Dots and Dawn is one of the goddesses that calypso names when she's confronting Hermes with the disparity between the gods and the goddesses and who they are allowed to love. So because of her curse, Don had many lovers. A Orion we know about Cephalos we know about. And this Tithonus and the short version of the story is that. Dawn fell in love with this young Prince Tithonus this incredibly handsome, beautiful man. And she asked. Zeus to make him immortal - She asked Zeus to let him live forever and Zeus bowed his head and agreed to this. And when Zeus bows his head, or when any God makes a vow, there is no way that this vow can possibly be broken or taken back. So Tithonus is granted immortality. He will live forever. But the writers say foolish Eos neglected to ask for eternal youth. And so to Thomas simply grew. Older and older and older. And older until his voice was just a squeak and Eos couldn't bear to be with him any more, and she left him in a bedroom and closed the door and went away. But of course, here on the Odyssey, Odyssey, when have we ever been satisfied with the short version of any story? There's a poem by Alfred, Lord Tennyson, and frankly, when I think of dead white men, there's almost no one I can think of deader or whiter than Alfred Lord Tennyson, but I was surprised how moved I was by the poem that he wrote Tithonus. And in the poem, which I'm going to read for you at the end of this episode, he takes the point of view of the ancient Tithonus who looks back. Back on the first days of loving Dawn and desperately wishing only for one thing, desperately wishing to be allowed to die. But he has one great fear, which is that the gods themselves cannot recall their gifts. But in the course of this poem, Tithonus remembers the the whispered words of love that he heard from Eos when he was a handsome young man. And he says, whispering. I knew not what of wild and sweet like that strange song I heard Apollo sing while illion like a mist rose into towers. What's that about? Apollo the towers of Ilyon rising like a mist. This gentle listener was a rabbit hole into which I happily dove, and now I'm going to take you with me. The story of Prince Tithonus. Is a story that takes us back to the very foundation, the very building of Troy. The story is sort of the the simoleon of of the Odyssey. The story begins ages before Odysseus was born, ages before, even the walls of Troy had been constructed, there was a king named Eric Sonus, and he had 3000 magnificent horses, 3000 mares, the most beautiful horses. That had ever lived. They were so beautiful that. Prius, the God of the north wind, fell madly in love with these horses, and he changed himself into a stallion and he mated with every one of these 3000 horses. And 12 of the offspring were immortal horses. These were horses. That could run over the tops of a wheat field and not crush the grain. They could run over the foam of the ocean and not. Think and these horses lived on Mount Olympus until the next King, King Tros, who's one of the people that Troy is named after. King Tross had two sons, Ilus and Ganymede. And Ganymede was one of the most beautiful young men who had ever lived. And when Zeus saw Ganymede, he fell hopelessly in love with him and abducted him to Mount Olympus. He transformed himself into an eagle. And Ganymede got onto the Eagles back and the eagle rose up into the sky to be Zeus's cupbearer, to pour ambrosia for Zeus. Or or some people say all of the gods. He was the cup bearer to all of the gods, and in later tradition he actually becomes. One of Zeus. But his father, Tross, was so devastated by the loss of his. Son that Zeus sent Hermes the messenger God to tell him that everything was OK because Ganymede was going to become immortal. Ganymede was going to live forever as the God's Cup bearer and to make it up to him, Zeus gave Tross two of these immortal, magnificent horses, the children of Boreas, now King Tross, had another son named Ilus, and Ilus is where we get the word Ilium, and ilium is where we get the word Iliad. A lot of people who encounter the Iliad are puzzled by the title because it doesn't mention Troy at all. The story of the Trojan War, but one of the older names of Troy is Ilium, and it's named after this king Islas and Ilus was the king who actually determined where Troy would be. But he didn't build it because there were any number of oracles from the gods saying that. This city that he was proposing would ultimately bring nothing but woe to those who live there. Nevertheless, he won a wrestling match with a Phrygian king, and he was given as a prize 50 young men and 50 young women and one cow, and he was advised by the Oracle of Apollo to follow this cow wherever it went and when it stopped. Create a city and he should populate that city with the descendants of these fifty men and 50 women. And that's what he did. That's what anyone would do. And in the midst of creating this city. Dropped down from heaven, a wooden statue of the goddess Athena, and this was the palladion. And this was a a clear sign from the gods that this city was in fact meant to be, and the statue was put into the temple of Athena. And if you remember back, we've encountered that statue in a couple of episodes of the Odyssey Odyssey. But even King Ilas did not raise the walls of the citadel of Troy that was left for his son, Laomedon. had the good fortune to encounter Apollo and Poseidon at a time when. They were living. As humans on. Earth they were. Punished by Zeus and this is a a very murky episode. I I searched and searched and I couldn't find too many details about it, but Zeus was punishing Poseidon and Apollo by sending them for a time to Earth to live as humans. And they had to work for Laomedon and. Was Poseidon and Apollo who built the walls of Troy? So this is where Tennyson's image comes from of the songs that Apollo sang as eleon like a mist rose into towers. However, when it came time to pay up, Laomedon would not pay. This is another one of those moments in mythology where you just asked, you know, what was this mortal thinking that he was going to offend the gods in this in this terrible way not to pay them his due. And by the way, if you're hearing Wagnerian cords in the background, yes, this is the same story. As occurs in the ring cycle when Wotan hires the two giants to build Valhalla and then in the end refuses to pay them, so King Laomedon the the. The beat he had many children and the three important ones for this story are Tithonus and Priam and his daughter Cassiani, and what Apollo and Poseidon did when they amadon refused to pay them for building Troy was they kidnapped his daughter. Cassiani and they changed her to a rock in the middle of the ocean to be devoured by a sea monster. And yes, this is exactly the same story as Perseus and Andromeda, but if a story is worth telling once, it's certainly worth telling twice. So there the poor Princess is and who comes along to rescue her but Heracles. Heracles is on his way back from completing one of his final labours, finding the apples of the Hesperides. He sees the poor Princess tied to a rock, about to be eaten by a sea monster, and he asks Laomedon what will you give me if I rescue your? and Laomedon still has those two immortal horses that he's inherited from his great grandfather, and he offers these to Heracles, who goes to battle with the sea monster and actually allows himself to be swallowed by the monster and then kills him from within. Like a preview of a coming attraction for the story of Jonah. In any case, he goes back to Laomedon , who is such an incredible deadbeat that he doesn't even pay Heracles for rescuing his daughter, and Heracles, those berserk and he all but destroys. The towers that Apollo and Poseidon have created. This is the first sack of Troy long before Odysseus was born. But the Princess, who has been rescued, is sent off to marry another king, but the two remaining sons of Laomedon. Tithonus and Priam - Priam goes on to become King of Troy during the Trojan War, and Tithonus is taken away by dawn ῥοδοδάκτυλος Ἠώς By the way ῥοδο. Fing a rhododendron is a rose tree and a δάκτυλος we talked about before with the dactylic hexameter ῥοδοδάκτυλος Ἠώς and now I could tell you that Ἠώς and Tithonus lived happily. After, but of course, Tithonus simply lives ever after, and not so happily. Unlike Endymion, who was the lover of Elsie's sister, Selene, the goddess of the moon, this is another great story where the moon sees Endymion and there's all kinds of variations of this story. But typically he's a beautiful shepherd. And the moon sees him while he's sleeping. And she makes love to him in his sleep, and she comes and does this again and again. And she has fifty children from Endymion. And finally, she asks Zeus to let him sleep forever to to remain immortal, and because he's constantly asleep, he never ages. Like poor Tithonus and teachers, poem has that famous line a thing of beauty is a joy forever, and that's such an ironic. Twist on the notion of Tithonus. Is forever, but ceases to be a thing of beauty in the eyes of Eos. So let's have a crack at reading. Alfred Lord Tennyson's poem Tithonus, and I hope a gentle listener that you're not the sort of person who instantly glazes over when a poem begins. But in any case. Here we go. The woods decay. The woods decay and fall. The vapours weep their burthen to the ground. Man comes and tills the field and lies beneath. And after many a summer dies, the swan. Me only cruel immortality consumes I wither slowly in thine arms. Here at the quiet limit of the world. A white-haired shadow roaming like a dream, the ever silent spaces of the east, Far folded mists and gleaming halls of mourn. Alas, for this grey shadow, once a man so glorious in his beauty and thy choice, who madest him, thy chosen that he seemed to his great heart none other than a God. I asked thee give me immortality. Then didst thou grant mine asking with a smile? Like wealthy men who care not how they give. But thy strong hours indignant worked their wills and beat me down and marred and wasted me. And though they could not end me, left me maimed to dwell in the presence of immortal youth. Immortal age beside immortal youth. And all I was in ashes. Can thy love thy beauty make amends, though even now, close over us the Silver star, thy guide shines in those tremulous eyes that fill with tears to hear me. Let me go. Take back thy gift. Why should a man desire in any way to vary from the kindly race of men, or pass beyond the goal of ordinance, where all should pause, as is most meat for all? A soft air fans the cloud apart. There comes a glimpse of that Dark World where I was born. Once more, the old, mysterious glimmer steals from thy pure brows and from thy shoulders, pure and bosom, beating with a heart renewed, thy cheek begins to redden through the gloom, thy sweet eyes bright and slowly close to mine. Ere yet they blind the stars. And the wild team, which love thee, yearning for thy yoke, arise and shake the darkness from their loosened manes, and beat the twilight into flakes of fire. Lo ever thus thou groweth beautiful in silence. Than before thine answer given departures and thy tears are on my cheek. Why wilt thou ever scare me with thy tears and make me tremble, lest the saying learnt in days, far off on that dark earth be true? The gods themselves cannot recall their gifts. Aye, me, a me. And with what other eyes I used to watch. If I be. He that watched the lucid outline forming round thee saw the dim curls Kindle into sunny rings, changed with thy Mystic change, and felt my blood glow with the glow that slowly crimsoned all thy presence and thy poor. Bottles while I lay, mouth, forehead, eyelids growing. Dewey warm with kisses Balmier than the half opening buds of April and could hear the lips that kissed whispering. I knew not what of wild and sweet like that strange. Song I heard Apollo sing while ilyon like a mist rose into towers. Yet hold me not for ever in thine ear. How can my nature longer mix with thine coldly? Thy rosy shadows bathe me cold. Are all thy lights and cold my wrinkled feet upon thy glimmering thresholds when the stream floats up from those dim fields about the homes of happy men that have the power to die? And grassy barrows of the happier dead. Release me and restore me to the ground. Thou seest all things. Thou wilt see my grave. Thou wilt renew thy beauty. Mourn by mourn. Aye, earth in earth. Forget these empty courts. And thee returning on thy silver wheels. Thanks so much for listening. I'm Tom Lee. This is the Odyssey odyssey. As always, you can find notes for this episode. And images are also linked to the text of the Tennyson poem and the beautiful Schubert song on Ganymede. And all of that's available at my website, www.tomlee. Storyteller.net or you can link directly there from wherever you're getting this podcast on the notes page there's a link to my website. And gentle listeners, I need to let you know that I'm going to take a little bit of a pause to get caught up. I'm always happier when I have one or two episodes pre recorded rather than being under pressure to get one out every week, so I need to take a little break and to catch up and. I'll be back in a few weeks with the continuing adventures of Odysseus. Until then, thanks for listening. I'm Tom Lee.