Odyssey 3.176 · Book 3, lines 176–180
The run to Geraestus, and the sacrifice to Poseidon
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ὦρτο δʼ ἐπὶ λιγὺς οὖρος ἀήμεναι· αἱ δὲ μάλʼ ὦκα ἰχθυόεντα κέλευθα διέδραμον, ἐς δὲ Γεραιστὸν ἐννύχιαι κατάγοντο· Ποσειδάωνι δὲ ταύρων πόλλʼ ἐπὶ μῆρʼ ἔθεμεν, πέλαγος μέγα μετρήσαντες. τέτρατον ἦμαρ ἔην, ὅτʼ ἐν Ἄργεϊ νῆας ἐίσας
And there rose up a shrill fair wind to blow; and the ships, very swiftly, ran across the fishy paths, and by night put in to Geraestus. There to Poseidon we laid many thigh-pieces of bulls upon the altar, having measured out the great sea. It was the fourth day, when in Argos the balanced ships—
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The setting
The sign proves true: a wind carries the ships across the open sea to Geraestus, at the southern tip of Euboea, where they thank Poseidon. Nestor's sentence breaks off as it begins to count the fleet's arrival at Argos.
A note on this passage
The sign proves true. A shrill wind rises, the ships race across the teeming sea and put in at Geraestus, on the southern tip of Euboea, by nightfall; and there the grateful crews burn many bulls' thighs to Poseidon for carrying them over the great water. The sentence breaks off already counting: it was the fourth day when the fleet reached Argos.
The undercurrent is who receives the thanks. Nestor pays Poseidon for a swift and safe crossing — the same sea-god whose unrelenting anger, elsewhere in this poem, keeps one man from ever crossing home. The reader, who knows why Odysseus is still lost, hears the irony beneath the old man's gratitude: the god of the sea can be a ferryman or a jailer, and which he is depends entirely on whom he has decided to hate.
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