Odyssey 5.356 · Book 5, lines 356–357
'What if this is another trap?'
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Odysseus — ὤ μοι ἐγώ, μή τίς μοι ὑφαίνῃσιν δόλον αὖτε ἀθανάτων, ὅ τέ με σχεδίης ἀποβῆναι ἀνώγει.
Ah, wretched me! I fear that one of the immortals is weaving a snare against me once more, who bids me step off the raft.
Word by word
The setting
Odysseus speaks his doubt aloud to himself. A god has told him to leave the raft — but gods have deceived him before, and he cannot be sure this seabird-woman is not weaving one more snare to drown him.
A note on this passage
His fear has a precise shape. It is not the storm he names but a δόλος, a 'snare' or 'weaving' — the suspicion that the rescue is a ruse and that stepping off the raft is exactly how he is meant to die. The word αὖτε, 'once more,' carries the weight: he has been tricked before, and expects it again.
The undercurrent is that δόλος is his own word. Weaving snares is what Odysseus is famous for — the man of many wiles, the mind behind the wooden horse. Here the master of the trick is afraid of being on its receiving end, reading the goddess's gift with the eye of someone who knows exactly how such traps are set. He distrusts her because he would know how to do it himself.
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