Odyssey 7.207 · Book 7, lines 207–210
Odysseus: I am no god, but a mortal
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τὸν δʼ ἀπαμειβόμενος προσέφη πολύμητις Ὀδυσσεύς·
Odysseus — Ἀλκίνοʼ, ἄλλο τί τοι μελέτω φρεσίν· οὐ γὰρ ἐγώ γε ἀθανάτοισιν ἔοικα, τοὶ οὐρανὸν εὐρὺν ἔχουσιν, οὐ δέμας οὐδὲ φυήν, ἀλλὰ θνητοῖσι βροτοῖσιν.
And answering him spoke Odysseus of many wiles: Alcinous, let some other thing occupy your mind; for I am not like the immortals, who hold broad heaven, not in build nor in stature, but like mortal men.
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The setting
Odysseus answers the king's guess at once. Careful not to let the flattering suspicion stand, he insists he is nothing like the immortals — in body or bearing — but a mortal man.
A note on this passage
Odysseus replies with the familiar formula for a measured answer, then moves fast to put down the dangerous compliment: let that thought go, he tells Alcinous, for he is not like the deathless gods who hold broad heaven, not in build or stature — he is a mortal, one of ordinary men.
The undercurrent is Odysseus's tact. To be mistaken for a god is flattering but perilous; a mortal who accepts divine honours courts disaster. He deflects with quiet precision, and the denial is also true in the poem's own terms — his whole greatness is that he is only a man, enduring what men endure. The hero defines himself, first thing, by his mortality.
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