Odyssey 5.486 · Book 5, lines 486–487
He rejoices and lies down
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τὴν μὲν ἰδὼν γήθησε πολύτλας δῖος Ὀδυσσεύς, ἐν δʼ ἄρα μέσσῃ λέκτο, χύσιν δʼ ἐπεχεύατο φύλλων.
Seeing it, much-enduring goodly Odysseus rejoiced, and lay down in the midst, and over himself he drew a heap of leaves.
Word by word
The setting
Odysseus has raked a deep bed from the fallen leaves under the twin olives. The reader sees him, for once, get something he needs.
A note on this passage
He sees the bed he has made and is glad of it; then he settles down in the middle of the pile and pulls more leaves over his body. Two lines, three plain verbs — he looks, he lies, he covers himself.
The weight sits on his epithet. πολύτλας, 'much-enduring,' is the standing name Homer gives Odysseus, and it lands here over a man rejoicing at a bed of leaves. The hero who bore the war and the sea now takes simple joy in warmth and rest — the title earned not by a great deed but by the capacity to be glad of very little.
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Odyssey 5.486 — The Great Library Project interlinear edition · greatlibraryproject.com/book/odyssey/5.486/