Odyssey 8.151 · Book 8, lines 151–152
The ship waits; Odysseus turns to answer
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νηῦς τε κατείρυσται καὶ ἐπαρτέες εἰσὶν ἑταῖροι. τὸν δʼ ἀπαμειβόμενος προσέφη πολύμητις Ὀδυσσεύς·
The ship is launched, and the companions are ready. In answer resourceful Odysseus spoke to him:
Word by word
The setting
During the Phaeacian games, young Laodamas, son of King Alcinous, has coaxed the still-unnamed guest to try the contests, adding that his ship and crew already stand ready for the voyage home. Now the stranger — Odysseus — turns to reply.
A note on this passage
Laodamas closes his invitation with a kindness meant to reassure: the ship stands ready, the crew is set, so competing costs the stranger nothing — his passage is already secured. The narrator then swings to the answer with the formula that names Odysseus for what he is.
The waiting ship is the tenderest point Laodamas could have touched. To a man who wants only to go home, ‘your ship is launched’ is comfort and torment at once. And the fixed epithet πολύμητις, ‘of many devices,’ arrives just before a reply that will carry not cunning but wounded weariness — the formula naming the schemer as the schemer sets scheming aside.
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Odyssey 8.151 — The Great Library Project interlinear edition · greatlibraryproject.com/book/odyssey/8.151/