Odyssey 8.194 · Book 8, lines 194–198
Even a blind man could find it
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ἀνδρὶ δέμας ἐικυῖα, ἔπος τʼ ἔφατʼ ἔκ τʼ ὀνόμαζεν·
Athena — καί κʼ ἀλαός τοι, ξεῖνε, διακρίνειε τὸ σῆμα ἀμφαφόων, ἐπεὶ οὔ τι μεμιγμένον ἐστὶν ὁμίλῳ, ἀλλὰ πολὺ πρῶτον. σὺ δὲ θάρσει τόνδε γʼ ἄεθλον· οὔ τις Φαιήκων τόδε γʼ ἵξεται, οὐδʼ ὑπερήσει.
In the likeness of a man in body, she spoke a word and called out: Even a blind man, I tell you, stranger, could tell apart your mark, groping it, since it is not at all mingled with the crowd, but far the first. And you, take heart in this contest; no one of the Phaeacians will reach this, nor overshoot it.
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The setting
Athena, in the likeness of one of the watching men, calls out to encourage the stranger and to make his win public: his mark stands so far ahead that even a blind man could find it by touch.
A note on this passage
Disguised as a man in the crowd, Athena says even a blind man, groping the ground, could pick out his mark, since it lies far in front, not mingled with the rest. Take heart in this contest, she tells him; no Phaeacian will reach it or throw beyond it.
The blind-man image is pointed in a book that will soon turn on the blind bard Demodocus. And the goddess now does openly what she has done all along in secret: she takes the stranger's side and says so, lending a divine voice to a victory he won on his own. The praise is also a nudge — she wants him seen.
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