Odyssey 5.428 · Book 5, lines 428–431
Clinging to the rock
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ἀμφοτέρῃσι δὲ χερσὶν ἐπεσσύμενος λάβε πέτρης, τῆς ἔχετο στενάχων, ἧος μέγα κῦμα παρῆλθε. καὶ τὸ μὲν ὣς ὑπάλυξε, παλιρρόθιον δέ μιν αὖτις πλῆξεν ἐπεσσύμενον, τηλοῦ δέ μιν ἔμβαλε πόντῳ.
With both hands he rushed and seized the rock, and clung to it, groaning, until the great wave passed by. So he escaped that one; but the backwash struck him again as it rushed on, and flung him far out into the sea.
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The setting
Acting on Athena's prompting, Odysseus lunges for the rock and holds on against the wave — but the sea is not finished with him.
A note on this passage
The rescue lasts exactly one wave. Odysseus grips the rock with both hands, rides out the crest, and survives it — and then the same water, sucking back, tears him loose and throws him seaward. The sentence grants a victory and cancels it in the next breath.
Here is the poem's picture of endurance: not one heroic act but a repeating grind. He does everything right and is beaten anyway, because the sea attacks twice — once coming, once going. The groan, στενάχων, is the human sound under the formula 'much-enduring'; we are watching, for the first time in the poem, what that epithet actually costs.
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