Odyssey 5.173 · Book 5, lines 173–176
‘Some other thing you plot’
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Odysseus — ἄλλο τι δὴ σύ, θεά, τόδε μήδεαι, οὐδέ τι πομπήν, ἥ με κέλεαι σχεδίῃ περάαν μέγα λαῖτμα θαλάσσης δεινόν τʼ ἀργαλέον τε· τὸ δʼ οὐδʼ ἐπὶ νῆες ἐῖσαι ὠκύποροι περόωσιν, ἀγαλλόμεναι Διὸς οὔρῳ.
“Some other thing, goddess, is what you plot here, and no safe passage — you who bid me cross on a raft the great gulf of the sea, dread and grievous, which not even trim swift ships pass over, glorying in Zeus's wind.
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Odysseus answers. He does not thank her; he accuses her, gently but plainly, of scheming — sending him out on a raft across a gulf that even real ships fear.
A note on this passage
Odysseus does not take the offer at face value. His answer is an accusation dressed as courtesy: you are plotting something, goddess, not arranging my rescue. His evidence is nautical common sense — you are telling me to cross open sea on a raft, over a gulf so terrible that even trim, fast, real ships, running before a good wind, do not make the passage.
The undercurrent is how he argues. This is not a hero's defiance but a sailor's reasoning: he measures the raft against proper ships and finds it a death-trap. Where another man might weep with gratitude at the word ‘home,’ Odysseus checks the vessel. His suspicion of Calypso is really a professional's fear of the sea — and, underneath, the memory that gods on this water have tried to kill him before.
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