Odyssey 10.164 · Book 10, lines 164–168
He trusses the great carcass
Read the full text in our reader
τῷ δʼ ἐγὼ ἐμβαίνων δόρυ χάλκεον ἐξ ὠτειλῆς εἰρυσάμην· τὸ μὲν αὖθι κατακλίνας ἐπὶ γαίῃ εἴασʼ· αὐτὰρ ἐγὼ σπασάμην ῥῶπάς τε λύγους τε, πεῖσμα δʼ, ὅσον τʼ ὄργυιαν, ἐυστρεφὲς ἀμφοτέρωθεν πλεξάμενος συνέδησα πόδας δεινοῖο πελώρου,
Setting my foot on it, I drew the bronze spear from the wound; that I laid down there on the ground and left it; but I myself plucked brushwood and withies, and a rope, about a fathom long, well-twisted at both ends, this I plaited, and bound together the feet of the terrible monster.
Word by word
The setting
The stag lies dead in the dust. Odysseus must get its huge body back to the ship, and needs a way to carry it.
A note on this passage
Practical hands. Odysseus braces his foot on the carcass, works the spear free of the wound, and sets it aside; then he tears off supple twigs and withies and plaits them into a rope a fathom long, twisted firm at both ends, and lashes the great animal’s legs for carrying.
The passage is a small manual of competence, and that is the point. This is the man of many devices doing the humble version of what he always does — improvising a tool from what the woods provide. The stag is called peloron, a ‘monster,’ the same word the poem uses for the Cyclops: here the monstrous thing is only its size, and it has already been mastered.
Read the full commentary — and tap any word for its dictionary entry — in the interlinear reader.
Open Odyssey 10.164 in the full reader
Always open passages in the reader
From the Great Library
You are reading a page of the Odyssey — the whole book is free in our interlinear reader.
The Great Library Project presses the classics in their original languages, glossed word by word — free to read, always. Browse the whole library.
Also on our shelves:
Odyssey 10.164 — The Great Library Project interlinear edition · greatlibraryproject.com/book/odyssey/10.164/