Odyssey 8.26 · Book 8, lines 26–30
Alcinous names the stranger's need
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Alcinous — κέκλυτε Φαιήκων ἡγήτορες ἠδὲ μέδοντες, ὄφρʼ εἴπω τά με θυμὸς ἐνὶ στήθεσσι κελεύει. ξεῖνος ὅδʼ, οὐκ οἶδʼ ὅς τις, ἀλώμενος ἵκετʼ ἐμὸν δῶ, ἠὲ πρὸς ἠοίων ἦ ἑσπερίων ἀνθρώπων· πομπὴν δʼ ὀτρύνει, καὶ λίσσεται ἔμπεδον εἶναι.
Hear me, leaders and rulers of the Phaeacians, so that I may say what the heart in my breast bids me. This stranger here — I do not know who he is — has come wandering to my house, whether from eastern or western men; and he presses for a convoy, and he begs that it be assured.
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The setting
The king now speaks to the assembled Phaeacians. He does not yet know his guest is Odysseus; the stranger has asked only for safe conveyance home.
A note on this passage
Alcinous opens formally — hear me, and let me say what my heart commands — and lays the case out plainly: a stranger has come wandering to his house; he has no idea who the man is or whether he hails from the eastern or the western edge of the world; and the man is asking for passage home, and begs that it be guaranteed.
Under the courtesy sits the book's governing suspense: οὐκ οἶδʼ ὅς τις, ‘I do not know who he is.’ No one on Scheria does, and the poem will not release the name until the hero speaks it himself in Book 9. This is xenia at its purest — Alcinous promises to convey a nameless castaway home before he asks a single question about him. The escort (πομπή) he is proposing is the very machinery that will finally carry Odysseus to Ithaca.
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