Odyssey 4.504 · Book 4, lines 504–507
Poseidon hears the boast
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φῆ ῥʼ ἀέκητι θεῶν φυγέειν μέγα λαῖτμα θαλάσσης. τοῦ δὲ Ποσειδάων μεγάλʼ ἔκλυεν αὐδήσαντος· αὐτίκʼ ἔπειτα τρίαιναν ἑλὼν χερσὶ στιβαρῇσιν ἤλασε Γυραίην πέτρην, ἀπὸ δʼ ἔσχισεν αὐτήν·
He declared that against the gods' will he had escaped the great gulf of the sea. And Poseidon heard him as he boasted loud; at once then, taking his trident in his mighty hands, he struck the Gyraean rock and split it apart.
Word by word
The setting
Ajax has cried aloud that he escaped the sea in the gods' despite. This is the god's answer: Poseidon, who had just saved him, hears the boast and takes up the trident.
A note on this passage
The boast is spoken and the boast is heard. Ajax declares he beat the deep against the will of the gods; Poseidon, the very god who had just saved him, hears him shouting it. He takes the trident in both hands, strikes the rock Ajax clings to, and splits it.
The undercurrent is symmetry. The same god, the same rock, the same hands: Poseidon lifted Ajax from the water and now cracks the stone from under him. The mercy and the killing are one continuous motion, hinged on a single sentence the man should not have said. Homer lets the sea-god's power look almost patient — he saves, he listens, and only then does he strike.
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