Odyssey 1.22 · Book 1, lines 22–25
Poseidon among the Aethiopians
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ἀλλʼ ὁ μὲν Αἰθίοπας μετεκίαθε τηλόθʼ ἐόντας, Αἰθίοπας τοὶ διχθὰ δεδαίαται, ἔσχατοι ἀνδρῶν, οἱ μὲν δυσομένου Ὑπερίονος οἱ δʼ ἀνιόντος, ἀντιόων ταύρων τε καὶ ἀρνειῶν ἑκατόμβης.
But he had gone off to the Aethiopians who dwell far away — Aethiopians who stand divided in two, farthest of men, some toward the setting Sun, others toward the rising — partaking there of a hecatomb of bulls and rams.
Word by word
The setting
Why the persecutor is absent: Poseidon has gone to the world's far edge, to the Aethiopians — a people split between sunrise and sunset — to receive a great sacrifice. While the sea-god feasts, the other gods can act.
A note on this passage
Four lines of pure stage-management, done as geography. Poseidon is not merely offstage; he is at the rim of the inhabited world, among a people split between the two doors of the sun, being fed a hundred beasts. The poem needs its persecutor out of the room, and it removes him as far as the map will allow.
The undercurrent is how Homer thinks about divine attention. A god's power is bounded by his presence: while Poseidon sits at one feast, he cannot watch the sea. The whole Odyssey happens in a window of divine distraction — and the window is holy: it is a sacrifice, an act of piety toward the very god it outflanks.
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