Odyssey 5.488 · Book 5, lines 488–490
As a man banks the seed of fire
Read the full text in our reader
ὡς δʼ ὅτε τις δαλὸν σποδιῇ ἐνέκρυψε μελαίνῃ ἀγροῦ ἐπʼ ἐσχατιῆς, ᾧ μὴ πάρα γείτονες ἄλλοι, σπέρμα πυρὸς σώζων, ἵνα μή ποθεν ἄλλοθεν αὔοι,
And as when a man buries a firebrand in the black ashes at the edge of a farm, who has no other neighbours living near, saving the seed of fire, so that he need not kindle it from elsewhere,
Word by word
The setting
Homer breaks off from the shore to compare the hidden, exhausted hero to a scene from the farm — the careful banking of a fire against the night. The simile runs three lines before it turns back to Odysseus.
A note on this passage
The narrative pauses for a simile drawn from farm life. A man at a lonely farmstead, with no neighbours to borrow fire from, banks a burning brand deep in the grey ash so that a live coal will outlast the night — the 'seed of fire' from which he can raise a new flame in the morning.
The undercurrent is survival kept barely alive. Homer reaches, at the hero's lowest point, for the humblest household act: guarding an ember against the dark. Odysseus buried in his leaves is that coal — the last spark of a man, hidden and preserved, waiting to be rekindled into the king he was.
Read the full commentary — and tap any word for its dictionary entry — in the interlinear reader.
Open Odyssey 5.488 in the full reader
Always open passages in the reader
From the Great Library
You are reading a page of the Odyssey — the whole book is free in our interlinear reader.
The Great Library Project presses the classics in their original languages, glossed word by word — free to read, always. Browse the whole library.
Also on our shelves:
Odyssey 5.488 — The Great Library Project interlinear edition · greatlibraryproject.com/book/odyssey/5.488/