Odyssey 6.135 · Book 6, lines 135–138
Terrible, brine-caked — the maids scatter
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ὣς Ὀδυσεὺς κούρῃσιν ἐυπλοκάμοισιν ἔμελλε μίξεσθαι, γυμνός περ ἐών· χρειὼ γὰρ ἵκανε. σμερδαλέος δʼ αὐτῇσι φάνη κεκακωμένος ἅλμῃ, τρέσσαν δʼ ἄλλυδις ἄλλη ἐπʼ ἠιόνας προὐχούσας·
So Odysseus was about to mingle with the fair-haired girls, naked though he was; for need pressed him. Terrible he appeared to them, befouled with brine, and they fled in fear one this way, one that, along the jutting shores.
Word by word
The setting
The simile closes and the scene snaps back: the lion is a naked, salt-crusted man, and the flock is a party of young girls. They break and run.
A note on this passage
The poem cashes the simile out. ‘So’ — like that lion — Odysseus was about to close with the fair-haired girls, and the reason is stated flatly: naked as he was, need drove him. Then the sight itself: fearsome, crusted with dried sea-salt, he shows himself, and the maids bolt in every direction along the shore.
The comedy and the pity sit together. A hero reduced to a frightening apparition, and a knot of girls scattering from what looks like a monster off the sea — it is nearly funny, and it is also the exact image of how far Odysseus has fallen. The one word ἅλμη, brine, does the work: the sea that wrecked him is still on his skin, and it is what makes him terrible.
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