Odyssey 10.125 · Book 10, lines 125–127
I cut the cables
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ὄφρʼ οἱ τοὺς ὄλεκον λιμένος πολυβενθέος ἐντός, τόφρα δʼ ἐγὼ ξίφος ὀξὺ ἐρυσσάμενος παρὰ μηροῦ τῷ ἀπὸ πείσματʼ ἔκοψα νεὸς κυανοπρῴροιο.
While within the deep harbor they were destroying them, meanwhile I, drawing my sharp sword from beside my thigh, cut off with it the cables of my dark-prowed ship.
Word by word
The setting
His men are being slaughtered in the deep harbor while Odysseus's ship lies moored at its mouth. He is the last captain still able to act.
A note on this passage
One decisive act against the slaughter. While the giants kill the men penned in the deep harbor, Odysseus draws his sword and cuts his own ship's mooring-ropes. The line is built as a contrast of timing — ὄφρα … τόφρα, "while … meanwhile" — his motion set exactly against their killing.
The undercurrent is what the sword is for. He draws the warrior's weapon, but not to fight; he turns it on his own cables, and the blade buys flight, not a stand. This is the man of devices choosing: he cannot save the crews dying in the harbor, only the one ship poised to run. The cut rope is a captain's arithmetic, and it saves the poem's hero at the cost of everyone he leaves behind.
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