Odyssey 3.291 · Book 3, lines 291–296
The fleet split — the cliff at Gortyn
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ἔνθα διατμήξας τὰς μὲν Κρήτῃ ἐπέλασσεν, ἧχι Κύδωνες ἔναιον Ἰαρδάνου ἀμφὶ ῥέεθρα. ἔστι δέ τις λισσὴ αἰπεῖά τε εἰς ἅλα πέτρη ἐσχατιῇ Γόρτυνος ἐν ἠεροειδέι πόντῳ· ἔνθα Νότος μέγα κῦμα ποτὶ σκαιὸν ῥίον ὠθεῖ, ἐς Φαιστόν, μικρὸς δὲ λίθος μέγα κῦμʼ ἀποέργει.
There, splitting the fleet, he drove some ships to Crete, where the Cydonians lived about the streams of the Iardanus. Now there is a certain cliff, smooth and sheer, running down into the sea at the edge of Gortyn, in the misty deep; there the South Wind drives a great wave against the western headland, toward Phaestus, and a small stone holds off the great water.
Word by word
The setting
The storm at Malea scatters Menelaus's ships. Nestor follows some of them down to the south coast of Crete and describes, with a sailor's precision, the deadly stretch of shore near Gortyn toward which they are driven.
A note on this passage
The gale scatters the fleet. Zeus's storm breaks Menelaus's ships apart; some are driven down to Crete, to the coast where the Cydonians lived by the river Iardanus. Nestor then pauses to fix the exact spot — a smooth, sheer cliff at the border of Gortyn, where the south wind piles a huge sea against the western point, and only one small rock breaks it.
The undercurrent is the eye behind the geography. This is not vague peril but a named, chartable coast — Gortyn, Phaestus, the Iardanus — the hard sailing-knowledge that lives inside the epic. Homer's audience could place it, and the precision is its own quiet claim of truth. It also sets up, coolly, the ships about to be broken on those very rocks.
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