Odyssey 6.323 · Book 6, lines 323–327
Odysseus prays to Athena
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αὐτίκʼ ἔπειτʼ ἠρᾶτο Διὸς κούρῃ μεγάλοιο·
Odysseus — κλῦθί μευ, αἰγιόχοιο Διὸς τέκος, Ἀτρυτώνη· νῦν δή πέρ μευ ἄκουσον, ἐπεὶ πάρος οὔ ποτʼ ἄκουσας ῥαιομένου, ὅτε μʼ ἔρραιε κλυτὸς ἐννοσίγαιος. δός μʼ ἐς Φαίηκας φίλον ἐλθεῖν ἠδʼ ἐλεεινόν.
At once then he prayed to the daughter of great Zeus: “Hear me, child of aegis-bearing Zeus, Atrytone; now at last hear me, since before you never heard me as I was wrecked, when the famous earth-shaker battered me. Grant that I come to the Phaeacians as a friend and pitied.”
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The setting
Alone in the grove at dusk, Odysseus prays to Athena — naming her by her cult-titles and reproaching her, gently, for not helping when Poseidon wrecked him at sea.
A note on this passage
His first prayer of the poem is careful and pointed. He addresses Athena by her titles — daughter of aegis-bearing Zeus, Atrytone, the Unwearied — and then, under the reverence, lodges a complaint: you did not hear me before, while Poseidon was smashing me on the sea. Now, at last, hear me. The single thing he asks is a welcome among the Phaeacians, to arrive loved and pitied.
The reproach is bold and knowing. Odysseus does not yet see the goddess — she keeps her distance — but he speaks as one who is sure she is listening, and half-scolds her for her silence. It is the tone of an old intimacy: the human who has learned exactly how the divine has failed him, and asks anyway. What he prays for is not rescue by force but simple kindness from strangers, the whole currency of xenia.
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