Odyssey 4.404 · Book 4, lines 404–406
The seals, brood of the sea-goddess
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ἀμφὶ δέ μιν φῶκαι νέποδες καλῆς ἁλοσύδνης ἁθρόαι εὕδουσιν, πολιῆς ἁλὸς ἐξαναδῦσαι, πικρὸν ἀποπνείουσαι ἁλὸς πολυβενθέος ὀδμήν.
And around him seals sleep in a huddle, the brood of the fair sea-goddess, risen from the grey sea, breathing out the bitter smell of the deep brine.
Word by word
The setting
Eidothea describes the herd Proteus sleeps among: the seals, children of a sea-goddess, that haul out of the water to rest beside him on the shore.
A note on this passage
The scene fills in around the sleeping god. His companions are seals — called the brood of a fair sea-goddess — that crawl up out of the grey water and pile together to sleep, breathing out the sharp reek of the deep. The register mixes the marvelous and the frankly foul.
That smell is not decoration. In a few dozen lines it becomes the ambush's near-undoing: the men hidden in seal-skins can barely endure the stench, and the goddess must smear ambrosia under their noses to save the plan. Homer plants the obstacle here, quietly, inside a line about sleeping animals — the reek that will almost cost Menelaus his prophecy.
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