Odyssey 10.506 · Book 10, lines 506–507
Set the mast, spread the sail, and sit
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Circe — ἱστὸν δὲ στήσας, ἀνά θʼ ἱστία λευκὰ πετάσσας ἧσθαι· τὴν δέ κέ τοι πνοιὴ Βορέαο φέρῃσιν.
and having set up the mast, and spread the white sails, sit; and the breath of the North Wind will bear her for you.
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The setting
Circe gives the sailing orders. There is nothing to steer toward; Odysseus is only to rig the ship and sit still. A wind will do the rest.
A note on this passage
The instruction is almost eerily simple. Raise the mast, open the sail, and then do nothing. No course to hold, no landmarks to read: the ship needs only to be rigged and let go, and the North Wind will carry it where it must.
That passivity is the strangeness of this voyage. Everywhere else in the poem seamanship is skill and struggle, oars and hard choices at the helm. Here Odysseus is told to sit while an outside power does the sailing. Reaching the dead is not something a man accomplishes by craft; it is something that happens to him when he stops resisting and lets the wind take the boat.
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