Homer's poetics include other noticeable devices that may seem odd to a modern reader. One is his extensive use of epithets. An epithet is a term or phrase used to characterize the nature of a character, an object, or an event. An epithet that has become a cliché because if its excessive use in earlier translations of The Odyssey is "rosy-fingered Dawn." Morning's first light is compared to rosy fingers spreading across the land. Fagles spares the reader slightly, while being faithful to the text, by referring to "Dawn with her rose-red fingers" (the first line of Book 2, for example).
Athena, sometimes called Pallas Athena or simply Pallas, often carries the epithet "sparkling-eyed" (l.53). Among other characteristics, hair gets a lot of attention in epithets. Circe, for example, is "the nymph with lovely braids" (10.149). Various limbs are extolled. The sea-nymph Ino is "Cadmus' daughter with lovely ankles" (5.366); the beautiful daughter of Alcinous and Arete is "[w]hite-armed Nausicaa" (6.112). In addition to identifying characters in ways that may or may not be very significant, epithets allow the poet to fill out a line and match the meter at his discretion.
