Odyssey 5.233 · Book 5, lines 233–236
The great bronze axe
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καὶ τότʼ Ὀδυσσῆι μεγαλήτορι μήδετο πομπήν· δῶκέν οἱ πέλεκυν μέγαν, ἄρμενον ἐν παλάμῃσι, χάλκεον, ἀμφοτέρωθεν ἀκαχμένον· αὐτὰρ ἐν αὐτῷ στειλειὸν περικαλλὲς ἐλάινον, εὖ ἐναρηρός·
And then she devised a conveyance for great-hearted Odysseus: she gave him a great axe, well fitted to his hands, of bronze, sharpened on both sides; and on it was a haft, very beautiful, of olive-wood, well fitted in.
Word by word
The setting
Calypso equips him for the work. The first tool is described lovingly, part by part — an axe of bronze, edged on both sides, socketed with a fine olive-wood handle. Homer lingers on the gear the way he lingers on weapons before a fight.
A note on this passage
The raft-building begins with an inventory of the axe, and Homer gives it the loving detail usually spent on a warrior's arms: the great double-edged bronze head, the beautiful olive-wood haft snugged tight into its socket. Everything is fitted, well-suited, made to sit right in the hand.
The undercurrent is what the poem values. This is the first sustained look at Odysseus as a maker rather than a sufferer, and the epic dignifies the tools of craft exactly as it dignifies the tools of war. The hero who will win at home by cunning and handwork is introduced, fittingly, through a perfectly balanced axe — the mind of the poem is already on skill, not force.
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