light of much-seeing Dawn’. The adjective may mean that Dawn herself sees
far and wide, like the Sun-god, or that she enables much seeing to be done.
In the Rigveda the root dr
̇
s ́, the cognate of Greek δερκ-, is often used in
connection with Dawn. She herself is dars ́ata ̄ ́, a sight to behold (5. 80. 2; 6. 64.
5; 7. 75. 3). She is beheld when she appears: dr
̇
s ́a ̄na ̄ ́, 1. 92. 12; práty adars ́i,
- 7, cf. 124. 3; 4. 52. 1, etc. She displays herself for seeing, dr
̇
- 7, cf. 124. 3; 4. 52. 1, etc. She displays herself for seeing, dr
s ́é kám,
- 11, 124. 6, cf. 5. 80. 5.
Every reader of Homer is delighted by the formula mοδοδα ́ κτυλο ,Η.,
‘rose-fingered Dawn’. It refers, of course, to her spreading rays of reddish
light. The ‘rose’ part is probably a Greek refinement. But the spread hand as
an image of the sun’s rays may be inherited from older poetic tradition. The
Vedic suan ̇gurí-‘with good fingers’ is a complimentary epithet of goddesses,
but when it is applied to the solar god Savitr
̇
- 11, 124. 6, cf. 5. 80. 5.
(RV 4. 54. 4) it is surely to be
understood in terms of rays. In other hymns he is called ‘golden-handed’
(híran
̇
yapa ̄n
̇i-, híran
̇yahasta-) and ‘broad-handed’ (pr
̇thúpa ̄n
̇i-). In a Latvian
song the gold on the Sun’sfingers is made into rings:
Saule, ma marraine,
tendait la main au-dessus du fleuve;
les doigts de ses deux mains étaient couverts
d’anneaux d’or en spirale.(LD 33932 = Jonval no. 159, cf. 33933–4= 158, 157.) Large spread hands,
attached to human figures or on their own, are a recurrent motif in the rock
art of Bronze Age Scandinavia, where they have been suspected of embodying
solar symbolism.^87
A variant on ‘rose-fingered’ is ‘rose-armed’,mοδο ́ πηχυ, applied to Dawn
by Sappho (58. 19 βροδο ́ παχυν ΑOων) and in a Homeric Hymn (31. 6). In
the Hesiodic corpus this compound is used more generally as an ornamental
epithet for nymphs and mortal women, but in relation to Dawn we naturally
interpret the rosiness with reference to the glow of the sky.
Likewise with Bacchylides’ ‘gold-armed Dawn’ (5. 40). Savitr
̇
too has
golden arms, hiran
̇
yáya ̄ ba ̄hu ̄ ́ (RV 6. 71. 1, 5; 7. 45. 2; ba ̄húh
̇=πη
χυ); and to
his arms the light of the Dawns is compared (7. 79. 2). Us
̇
as herself is híran
̇ya-
varn
̇
a ̄, ‘gold-coloured’ (3. 61. 2; 7. 77. 2). Ovid calls the personified Aurora
flaua, ‘the golden-yellow one’ (Amores 1. 13. 2). The Latvian Sun-goddess
Saule or her daughter can be called a zelta jumpravin ̧a, ‘golden maid’
(LD 33971 var. 6, 33989 var. 6 = Jonval nos. 309, 176).
Other passages refer not to Dawn’s skin but to her dress. She is clothed in
light, jyótir vása ̄na ̄ (1. 124. 3); she wears a bright shining garment (7. 77. 2,
(^87) Gelling–Davidson (1969), 56–8; M. Green (1991), 50–2.
220 5. Sun and Daughter