Odyssey 8.138 · Book 8, lines 138–139
Nothing breaks a man like the sea
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Laodamas — οὐ γὰρ ἐγώ γέ τί φημι κακώτερον ἄλλο θαλάσσης ἄνδρα γε συγχεῦαι, εἰ καὶ μάλα καρτερὸς εἴη.
For I say there is nothing else worse than the sea to overwhelm a man, even if he be very strong.
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The setting
Laodamas finishes his appraisal of the stranger with a general remark about what the sea does to a man.
A note on this passage
Laodamas closes with a maxim: nothing wrecks a man like the sea, however strong he is. It is offered simply as the explanation for the stranger's battered look.
The irony runs deep and unseen. The young Phaeacian states a general truth about the sea's power to break men — to the one man in the hall who has been broken by it more thoroughly than anyone alive. Homer lets a boy lecture Odysseus on the sea. The audience knows exactly who is listening; the speaker has no idea.
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