Odyssey 5.295 · Book 5, lines 295–297
The four winds clash, and his knees give way
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σὺν δʼ Εὖρός τε Νότος τʼ ἔπεσον Ζέφυρός τε δυσαὴς καὶ Βορέης αἰθρηγενέτης, μέγα κῦμα κυλίνδων. καὶ τότʼ Ὀδυσσῆος λύτο γούνατα καὶ φίλον ἦτορ,
Together fell the East Wind and the South Wind and the ill-blowing West Wind and the clear-sky-born North Wind, rolling a great wave. And then Odysseus's knees and dear heart were loosened,
Word by word
The setting
Poseidon has raised his storm over the sea within sight of Scheria. Now the winds themselves fall on Odysseus's raft.
A note on this passage
All four winds hit at once — East, South, West, North — and roll up one great wave. Then the formula that in the Iliad marks a warrior dropping in death lands on Odysseus: his knees and heart were loosened. He has not fought; he has only seen the sea rise.
The undercurrent is that this is not weather. Winds from four opposed quarters cannot blow together in nature; their collision is the signature of a god's hand, chaos where there should be a single direction. And the death-formula, borrowed from the battlefield, quietly measures how far the hero has fallen: the man who survived Troy meets his 'death' unarmed, on a raft, with nothing to strike back at.
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