Odyssey 8.246 · Book 8, lines 246–249
No boxers, but the arts of peace
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οὐ γὰρ πυγμάχοι εἰμὲν ἀμύμονες οὐδὲ παλαισταί, ἀλλὰ ποσὶ κραιπνῶς θέομεν καὶ νηυσὶν ἄριστοι, αἰεὶ δʼ ἡμῖν δαίς τε φίλη κίθαρις τε χοροί τε εἵματά τʼ ἐξημοιβὰ λοετρά τε θερμὰ καὶ εὐναί.
For we are not flawless boxers, nor wrestlers, but with our feet we run swiftly, and best with ships; and always dear to us are the feast, the lyre, the dances, fresh clothes to change into, warm baths, and beds.
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The setting
Alcinous continues, answering the earlier taunt that the stranger looked no athlete. He defines what the Phaeacians truly excel at — not the fighting sports, but speed, seafaring, and the arts of peace.
A note on this passage
Alcinous concedes the very point that stung. Phaeacians are no faultless boxers or wrestlers. What they are, he says, is swift of foot and supreme with ships — and lovers of the feast, the lyre, dances, fresh clothes, warm baths, and bed. He answers an insult by redrawing the whole scale of worth.
The undercurrent is a portrait of a people who do not fight. Their catalogue of goods is entirely the soft wealth of peace, with not a spear in it — the opposite of the Troy Odysseus came from. To a man who has lost his companions and his years to war, this frictionless life of baths and music is both balm and provocation: a world that has never had to endure what he has endured.
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