Odyssey 5.451 · Book 5, lines 451–454
The river stills, and he crawls ashore
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ὣς φάθʼ, ὁ δʼ αὐτίκα παῦσεν ἑὸν ῥόον, ἔσχε δὲ κῦμα, πρόσθε δέ οἱ ποίησε γαλήνην, τὸν δʼ ἐσάωσεν ἐς ποταμοῦ προχοάς. ὁ δʼ ἄρʼ ἄμφω γούνατʼ ἔκαμψε χεῖράς τε στιβαράς. ἁλὶ γὰρ δέδμητο φίλον κῆρ.
So he spoke, and the river at once stilled its own stream, and checked the wave, and before him made a calm, and brought him safe to the river's mouth. Then he bent both his knees and his stout hands; for his own heart was broken by the brine.
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The setting
Battered by two days in the surf, Odysseus has prayed to the god of an unknown river on the coast of Scheria. The river-god hears him, checks his current, and gives the swimmer a patch of calm water at his mouth.
A note on this passage
The river-god obeys and calms his current; Odysseus reaches the shallows at the river's mouth and can go no further on his own strength. His knees buckle, his arms give out, and the poet says plainly why: the sea has worn his very heart down.
This is the hero at his physical floor. For four books he has been talked about, prayed for, wept over — a name in other people's mouths. Here at last we watch him act, and the first thing his body does is fail. The Odyssey introduces its man of endurance by showing endurance spent to the last, saved only because a river was willing to be still.
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