Odyssey 10.1 · Book 10, lines 1–4
Aeolia, the floating island
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Αἰολίην δʼ ἐς νῆσον ἀφικόμεθʼ· ἔνθα δʼ ἔναιεν Αἴολος Ἱπποτάδης, φίλος ἀθανάτοισι θεοῖσιν, πλωτῇ ἐνὶ νήσῳ· πᾶσαν δέ τέ μιν πέρι τεῖχος χάλκεον ἄρρηκτον, λισσὴ δʼ ἀναδέδρομε πέτρη.
And we came to the island of Aeolia; and there dwelt Aeolus, son of Hippotas, dear to the immortal gods, on a floating island; and all round it a wall of bronze, unbreakable, and a smooth rock rises sheer.
Word by word
The setting
Odysseus's tale goes on. After the Cyclops, the ships reach Aeolia, the floating island of Aeolus, keeper of the winds — ringed all round by an unbroken bronze wall and a sheer cliff.
A note on this passage
After the Cyclops, the ships raise Aeolia, and the poem pauses to build the place: a floating island, a keeper of the winds beloved of the gods, a bronze wall and sheer cliff running all the way round. It is a fortress that needs no army, sealed against the sea.
The island floats — unanchored, self-contained, going nowhere and needing nothing. That closed perfection is the undercurrent. Aeolus's house will prove a sealed world of its own, and the gift he gives will be winds shut in a bag; the ring-wall round the isle quietly rhymes with the ox-hide that Odysseus's men will not leave closed.
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