Odyssey 7.82 · Book 7, lines 82–85
Odysseus at the shining threshold
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Ἀλκινόου πρὸς δώματʼ ἴε κλυτά· πολλὰ δέ οἱ κῆρ ὥρμαινʼ ἱσταμένῳ, πρὶν χάλκεον οὐδὸν ἱκέσθαι. ὥς τε γὰρ ἠελίου αἴγλη πέλεν ἠὲ σελήνης δῶμα καθʼ ὑψερεφὲς μεγαλήτορος Ἀλκινόοιο
went toward the glorious halls of Alcinous; and his heart pondered much as he stood, before reaching the bronze threshold. For there was a radiance, just as of the sun or the moon, throughout the high-roofed house of great-hearted Alcinous.
Word by word
The setting
Odysseus approaches the palace of Alcinous and pauses on the threshold, his mind working, before he goes in. The house shines like sun or moon.
A note on this passage
Odysseus comes up to the glorious halls and stops. His heart turns things over as he stands at the bronze threshold, not yet daring to cross — the poem's usual pause of a man measuring a great house before he enters it. Then the reason for his hesitation: the place shines like the light of the sun or the moon.
The undercurrent is the man inside the wonder. For all the dazzle of Alcinous's house, the line keeps its eye on Odysseus's pondering heart. He is the survivor who has learned to test every threshold, and the radiance he weighs is also a foreign power he must enter as a beggar. The marvel is real, but it is being seen by a wary man who has been wrecked by the beautiful and the strange before.
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