Odyssey 10.358 · Book 10, lines 358–360
Water on the fire
Read the full text in our reader
ἡ δὲ τετάρτη ὕδωρ ἐφόρει καὶ πῦρ ἀνέκαιε πολλὸν ὑπὸ τρίποδι μεγάλῳ· ἰαίνετο δʼ ὕδωρ. αὐτὰρ ἐπεὶ δὴ ζέσσεν ὕδωρ ἐνὶ ἤνοπι χαλκῷ,
The fourth brought water and kindled a great fire beneath a large tripod; and the water grew warm. But when the water boiled in the gleaming bronze,
Word by word
The setting
The fourth nymph heats water for the bath Circe will give Odysseus — a further rite of welcome. The unit ends mid-sentence as the water comes to the boil.
A note on this passage
The last maid heats the bath-water, building a great fire under a tripod cauldron until it boils. The verse tracks the process in slow, concrete stages: water carried, fire lit, warmth rising, the boil reached.
The warm bath is the next station of guest-welcome, the care a host gives a traveller before the meal. That Circe now offers Odysseus this ordinary comfort measures how far the encounter has turned — from the drugged cup that ruined his men to the heated water that will soothe him. The sentence breaks off at the boil, holding the reader at the threshold of the bath to come.
Read the full commentary — and tap any word for its dictionary entry — in the interlinear reader.
Open Odyssey 10.358 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 10.358 — The Great Library Project interlinear edition · greatlibraryproject.com/book/odyssey/10.358/