Odyssey 5.391 · Book 5, lines 391–393
The calm, and land in sight
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καὶ τότʼ ἔπειτʼ ἄνεμος μὲν ἐπαύσατο ἠδὲ γαλήνη ἔπλετο νηνεμίη· ὁ δʼ ἄρα σχεδὸν εἴσιδε γαῖαν ὀξὺ μάλα προϊδών, μεγάλου ὑπὸ κύματος ἀρθείς.
And then the wind ceased and a windless calm arose; and he caught sight of land close by, peering keenly ahead, borne aloft on a great swell.
Word by word
The setting
Odysseus has spent two days and nights adrift in the swell after Poseidon wrecked his raft, kept afloat by the sea-goddess Ino's veil. Now, on the third dawn, the wind at last drops.
A note on this passage
On the third day the storm simply stops. The wind falls, a dead calm settles, and lifted on a long swell Odysseus finally sees land close by. After days in the water the poem lets the sea go quiet and hands him a first glimpse of solid ground.
The verbs do the work. He does not merely see the coast — he is 'borne up' by a wave to see it, so that the very sea that battered him now raises him high enough to spot shore. The rescue arrives folded inside the danger, a pattern that will hold for the rest of the scene.
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