Odyssey 7.199 · Book 7, lines 199–203
If a god has come down
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εἰ δέ τις ἀθανάτων γε κατʼ οὐρανοῦ εἰλήλουθεν, ἄλλο τι δὴ τόδʼ ἔπειτα θεοὶ περιμηχανόωνται. αἰεὶ γὰρ τὸ πάρος γε θεοὶ φαίνονται ἐναργεῖς ἡμῖν, εὖτʼ ἔρδωμεν ἀγακλειτὰς ἑκατόμβας, δαίνυνταί τε παρʼ ἄμμι καθήμενοι ἔνθα περ ἡμεῖς.
But if some one of the immortals has come down from heaven, then the gods are surely contriving some other thing. For always before now the gods appear manifest to us, whenever we offer glorious hecatombs, and they feast beside us, sitting where we ourselves sit.
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The setting
A new thought strikes Alcinous: perhaps the stranger is no mortal at all but a god in disguise. He reflects on how openly the gods have always dealt with the Phaeacians, feasting among them at their sacrifices.
A note on this passage
Alcinous floats a suspicion: perhaps the stranger is a god come down from heaven, and something new is afoot. His reason is a boast about his own people — the gods have always shown themselves plainly to the Phaeacians, feasting beside them at their hecatombs, sitting where the Phaeacians sit.
The undercurrent is dramatic irony and Phaeacian pride at once. The guest is not a god but the very mortal whose story the gods have been steering — Alcinous half-sees the divine hand and misreads it. And the claim of god-given intimacy marks how the Phaeacians think of themselves: a charmed people, close kin to the immortals, living at the edge of the human world.
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