Odyssey 7.56 · Book 7, lines 56–60
The Phaeacian line, from Poseidon
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Ναυσίθοον μὲν πρῶτα Ποσειδάων ἐνοσίχθων γείνατο καὶ Περίβοια, γυναικῶν εἶδος ἀρίστη, ὁπλοτάτη θυγάτηρ μεγαλήτορος Εὐρυμέδοντος, ὅς ποθʼ ὑπερθύμοισι Γιγάντεσσιν βασίλευεν. ἀλλʼ ὁ μὲν ὤλεσε λαὸν ἀτάσθαλον, ὤλετο δʼ αὐτός·
Nausithous, first of all, Poseidon the Earth-shaker begot, and Periboea, most beautiful of women in form, the youngest daughter of great-hearted Eurymedon, who once was king over the overweening Giants. But he destroyed his reckless people, and perished himself.
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The setting
Athena continues explaining the Phaeacian royal house, tracing Queen Arete's and King Alcinous's descent back to the sea-god Poseidon through the founder-king Nausithous.
A note on this passage
Athena traces the royal pedigree back to a god. Poseidon and the beautiful Periboea produced Nausithous, the founder-king; Periboea was the youngest daughter of Eurymedon, who once ruled the Giants. It is a lineage of the highest possible rank, a sea-god at its root.
But the genealogy carries a warning folded inside it. Eurymedon 'destroyed his reckless people and perished himself,' the standard fate of the Giants, an overweening race undone by its own arrogance. The Phaeacians descend, through their queen's line, from exactly that story, and the poem quietly files the fact away. The word for reckless, atasthalos, is already in the air, and Poseidon will remember this seafaring people before the tale is done.
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