Laudator Temporis Acti

Homer, Odyssey 2.1 (tr. A.T. Murray):

Soon as early Dawn appeared, the rosy-fingered...

ἦμος δ᾽ ἠριγένεια φάνη ῥοδοδάκτυλος Ἠώς...

W.B. Stanford ad loc.:

'Rosy-fingered', as Eustathius explains, probably refers to the spreading crimson rays of the rising sun. The suggestion that being an Oriental lady she would have her finger-nails dyed red is too far-fetched.

The line appears 20 times in the Odyssey. In her translation, Emily Wilson renders it differently each time it occurs:

• 2.1 The early Dawn was born; her fingers bloomed
• 3.404 When newborn Dawn appeared with rosy fingers
• 3.491 When rosy-fingered Dawn came bright and early
• 4.306 Soon Dawn was born, her fingers bright with roses
• 4.431 When Dawn appeared, her fingers bright with flowers
• 4.576 When early Dawn appeared and touched the sky with / blossom
• 5.228 When vernal Dawn first touched the sky with flowers
• 8.1 Soon Dawn appeared and touched the sky with roses
• 9.152 When early Dawn shone forth with rosy fingers
• 9.170 But when the rosy hands of Dawn appeared
• 9.307 Early the Dawn appeared, pink fingers blooming
• 9.437 When early Dawn revealed her rose-red hands
• 9.560 Then when rose-fingered Dawn came, bright and early
• 10.187 Then the roses of Dawn's fingers / appeared again
• 12.8 When Dawn came, / born early, with her fingertips like petals
• 12.316 When rosy-fingered Dawn / appeared
• 13.18 Then Dawn was born again; her fingers / bloomed
• 15.189 When rosy-fingered Dawn / the early-born appeared
• 17.1 When newborn Dawn appeared with hands of flowers
• 19.428 When early Dawn, / the newborn child with rosy hands appeared

Peter Green always translates the line in the same way:

When Dawn appeared, early risen and rosy-fingered

M.L. West, Indo-European Poetry and Myth (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2007), p. 220: Related post: Telemachus Inhaled.