Odyssey 10.76 · Book 10, lines 76–79
Rowing on, no wind to help
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ὣς εἰπὼν ἀπέπεμπε δόμων βαρέα στενάχοντα. ἔνθεν δὲ προτέρω πλέομεν ἀκαχήμενοι ἦτορ. τείρετο δʼ ἀνδρῶν θυμὸς ὑπʼ εἰρεσίης ἀλεγεινῆς ἡμετέρῃ ματίῃ, ἐπεὶ οὐκέτι φαίνετο πομπή.
So saying, he sent me from his house, groaning heavily. From there we sailed onward, grieved at heart. And the men's spirit was worn by the grievous rowing, through our own folly, since no escort appeared any longer.
Word by word
The setting
Cast out of Aeolia a second time, the ships put to sea. This time there is no magic wind: the men must row, and the labour tells on them — a grief the poem blames squarely on themselves.
A note on this passage
The gift is gone and the muscles take over. Where a wind once carried them, now oars do, and Homer marks the difference in the body: the men's spirit worn down by grievous rowing. The single word 'folly' fixes the blame — this exhaustion is self-inflicted, the wages of the opened bag.
The quiet stroke is 'our own.' Odysseus, telling the tale, gathers the guilt into the first person plural rather than leaving it on the crew alone. The escort that no longer appears was theirs to keep; its absence is the shape of a chance thrown away. The poem lets the reader feel a squandered homecoming as a plain ache in the arms.
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