Odyssey 5.386 · Book 5, lines 386–390
Two nights and days adrift
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ἧος ὃ Φαιήκεσσι φιληρέτμοισι μιγείη διογενὴς Ὀδυσεὺς θάνατον καὶ κῆρας ἀλύξας. ἔνθα δύω νύκτας δύο τʼ ἤματα κύματι πηγῷ πλάζετο, πολλὰ δέ οἱ κραδίη προτιόσσετʼ ὄλεθρον. ἀλλʼ ὅτε δὴ τρίτον ἦμαρ ἐυπλόκαμος τέλεσʼ Ἠώς,
until he might come among the oar-loving Phaeacians, Zeus-born Odysseus, having escaped death and the fates. There for two nights and two days he drifted on the swollen wave, and often his heart foresaw destruction. But when at last the third day fair-tressed Dawn brought to its close,
Word by word
The setting
Athena has set the North Wind to drive Odysseus toward Scheria. The poem now names his fated destination — the Phaeacians — and covers the long crossing in a few lines, ending on the third dawn, when the next scene will begin.
A note on this passage
The purpose-clause names the goal — the oar-loving Phaeacians, his last hosts before Ithaca — and calls him Zeus-born as he escapes death and the death-fates in the same breath. Then the poem does what epic does with long ordeals: it compresses. Two nights and two days of drifting pass in a single line, and only his heart, forever foreseeing destruction, marks how each hour felt.
The formula that closes the unit is the great one: fair-tressed Dawn completing the third day. It is the poem's ordinary sunrise, used everywhere — but here it lands after two days when a drowning man expected no more mornings. The serene fixed phrase, set against the wave that would not let him rest, is exactly the gap the epic keeps opening: the calm turning of the world above the single body fighting to stay in it.
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