Odyssey 4.444 · Book 4, lines 444–446
Ambrosia under the nose
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ἀλλʼ αὐτὴ ἐσάωσε καὶ ἐφράσατο μέγʼ ὄνειαρ· ἀμβροσίην ὑπὸ ῥῖνα ἑκάστῳ θῆκε φέρουσα ἡδὺ μάλα πνείουσαν, ὄλεσσε δὲ κήτεος ὀδμήν.
But she herself saved us and devised a great help: she set ambrosia under each man's nose, bringing it as it breathed very sweetly, and it killed the monster's stench.
Word by word
The setting
Eidothea saves the ambush from failing. As the men choke on the seal-stench, she supplies a divine remedy so they can hold their place until her father comes.
A note on this passage
The rescue is domestic and exact. Eidothea goes down the row and dabs ambrosia under each man's nose; its sweet breath cancels the reek, and the ambush can hold. A goddess solving a smell problem with the food of the gods.
The undercurrent is what ambrosia is being asked to do. It is the immortals' own substance, the thing that keeps the gods deathless — and here it is used as a perfume, spent on four hidden soldiers to get them past a bad hour. The scene measures the distance between gods and men: what is life itself to Eidothea is, to Menelaus, a way not to gag. Divine help meets human need at exactly its smallest scale.
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