Odyssey 5.313 · Book 5, lines 313–317
The wave and the broken raft
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ὣς ἄρα μιν εἰπόντʼ ἔλασεν μέγα κῦμα κατʼ ἄκρης δεινὸν ἐπεσσύμενον, περὶ δὲ σχεδίην ἐλέλιξε. τῆλε δʼ ἀπὸ σχεδίης αὐτὸς πέσε, πηδάλιον δὲ ἐκ χειρῶν προέηκε· μέσον δέ οἱ ἱστὸν ἔαξεν δεινὴ μισγομένων ἀνέμων ἐλθοῦσα θύελλα,
So as he spoke a great wave struck him down from on high, rushing on terribly, and spun the raft round. Far from the raft he himself fell, and let the steering-oar go out of his hands; and a terrible squall of clashing winds came and snapped his mast in the middle.
Word by word
The setting
The moment Odysseus finishes speaking, the storm falls on him. A monstrous wave strikes the raft and flings him overboard; the steering-oar is lost and the mast breaks under the winds.
A note on this passage
The speech ends and the sea answers. A great wave falls on him from above, spins the raft like a top, and throws him clear; the steering-oar is torn from his grip. Then a squall of colliding winds comes down and snaps the mast in two.
Homer stages the wreck as a run of losses, each stripping away one more means of control: first the raft's steadiness, then the man's footing on it, then the oar that steers, then the mast that carries the sail. Inside five lines Odysseus is left with nothing to work with but his own body. The poem is clearing the board down to the bare hero.
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