Odyssey 10.406 · Book 10, lines 406–409
Back to the shore
Read the full text in our reader
ὣς ἔφατʼ, αὐτὰρ ἐμοί γʼ ἐπεπείθετο θυμὸς ἀγήνωρ, βῆν δʼ ἰέναι ἐπὶ νῆα θοὴν καὶ θῖνα θαλάσσης. εὗρον ἔπειτʼ ἐπὶ νηὶ θοῇ ἐρίηρας ἑταίρους οἴκτρʼ ὀλοφυρομένους, θαλερὸν κατὰ δάκρυ χέοντας.
So she spoke, but my heart, proud, was persuaded; and I set out to go to the swift ship and the shore of the sea. Then I found by the swift ship my trusty comrades lamenting piteously, shedding down warm tears.
Word by word
The setting
Odysseus obeys Circe and goes back down to the beach for the men he left guarding the ship. They do not yet know he has saved the scouting party; they think he too is lost.
A note on this passage
A hinge of movement. Circe gives the order, Odysseus's spirit agrees, and he walks the familiar path back to the sea. The repeated formula ‘the swift ship and the shore of the sea,’ used two lines apart, marks the down-and-back of the journey.
What he finds is grief. The men at the ship have had no word; they weep as for the dead, sure that the scouting party and now their captain are gone. The poem sets their tears at the very moment their fear is already answered — Odysseus stands before them safe, and the whole crew about to be restored. They do not know it yet, which is exactly what makes the next lines land.
Read the full commentary — and tap any word for its dictionary entry — in the interlinear reader.
Open Odyssey 10.406 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 10.406 — The Great Library Project interlinear edition · greatlibraryproject.com/book/odyssey/10.406/