Odyssey 10.178 · Book 10, lines 178–180
They uncover their faces and marvel
Read the full text in our reader
ὣς ἐφάμην, οἱ δʼ ὦκα ἐμοῖς ἐπέεσσι πίθοντο, ἐκ δὲ καλυψάμενοι παρὰ θῖνʼ ἁλὸς ἀτρυγέτοιο θηήσαντʼ ἔλαφον· μάλα γὰρ μέγα θηρίον ἦεν.
So I spoke, and they quickly obeyed my words, and uncovering their faces, along the shore of the barren sea, they gazed at the stag; for it was a very great beast.
Word by word
The setting
Odysseus has finished speaking. His men have been lying by the shore with their heads covered in grief.
A note on this passage
The men respond at once. They uncover their heads — they had been lying muffled in grief — and come out along the beach to look at the enormous deer, marvelling at its size. The last line repeats word for word the line that closed the carrying scene: ‘for it was a very great beast.’
That repeated line is doing quiet work. The same wonder that was Odysseus’s reason for needing a spear to lean on is now the thing that pulls his men up out of their mourning. The stag is a plain marvel — not a god, not a monster, just an animal big enough to be astonishing — and it is enough to turn grief back toward life and appetite. The barren, ‘unharvested’ sea in the same breath reminds us where the only food comes from.
Read the full commentary — and tap any word for its dictionary entry — in the interlinear reader.
Open Odyssey 10.178 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 10.178 — The Great Library Project interlinear edition · greatlibraryproject.com/book/odyssey/10.178/