Odyssey 8.121 · Book 8, lines 121–125
The footrace: Clytoneus leaves the field
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τοῖσι δʼ ἀπὸ νύσσης τέτατο δρόμος· οἱ δʼ ἅμα πάντες καρπαλίμως ἐπέτοντο κονίοντες πεδίοιο· τῶν δὲ θέειν ὄχʼ ἄριστος ἔην Κλυτόνηος ἀμύμων· ὅσσον τʼ ἐν νειῷ οὖρον πέλει ἡμιόνοιιν, τόσσον ὑπεκπροθέων λαοὺς ἵκεθʼ, οἱ δʼ ἐλίποντο.
The course stretched for them from the starting-line, and they all together swiftly flew, raising dust over the plain; and of them by far the best at running was noble Clytoneus. As far as the range of a mule-team reaches in fallow land, so far outrunning the host he reached [the goal], and they were left behind.
Word by word
The setting
The Phaeacians have proposed games to entertain their still-unnamed guest. The young men gather on the field, and the first event is the footrace.
A note on this passage
The games open with the footrace. The runners burst from the line in a single dusty rush, and one man, Clytoneus, simply leaves the field behind. The poet fixes his lead with a farmer's yardstick — the length a mule-team ploughs at one stretch.
The comparison is the quiet thing. Homer gauges an athlete's speed not against the other runners but against the working of a plough, the heroic and the agricultural laid side by side. The simile keeps the Phaeacians' play tethered to the ordinary world of fields and labor — the world of home that Odysseus is trying to reach.
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