Odyssey 8.285 · Book 8, lines 285–288
Ares keeps no blind watch
Read the full text in our reader
οὐδʼ ἀλαοσκοπιὴν εἶχε χρυσήνιος Ἄρης, ὡς ἴδεν Ἥφαιστον κλυτοτέχνην νόσφι κιόντα· βῆ δʼ ἰέναι πρὸς δῶμα περικλυτοῦ Ἡφαίστοιο ἰσχανόων φιλότητος ἐυστεφάνου Κυθερείης.
Nor did Ares of the golden reins keep a blind watch, when he saw Hephaestus famed-in-craft going off; and he set out to go to the house of glorious Hephaestus, longing for the love of fair-crowned Cytherea.
Word by word
The setting
Ares, the god of war, has been watching for his chance. The instant he sees Hephaestus leave, he moves — straight to the smith-god's own house, hungry for Aphrodite.
A note on this passage
The scene cuts to the lover, who has been watching all along. “Ares of the golden reins kept no blind watch” — the litotes says he was wide awake, eyes on the door, and the moment Hephaestus goes off he heads for the house, driven by desire for Aphrodite.
The undercurrent is the neat irony of the epithets. Hephaestus is twice called the master craftsman even as Ares walks into his craft; the trap-builder is “famed for skill” in the very line where the victim thinks he is unobserved. And the god of watchfulness in war keeps a lover's watch here — sharp for a bedroom, blind to the web already hanging in it.
Read the full commentary — and tap any word for its dictionary entry — in the interlinear reader.
Open Odyssey 8.285 in the full reader
Always open passages in the reader
From the Great Library
You are reading a page of the Odyssey — the whole book is free in our interlinear reader.
The Great Library Project presses the classics in their original languages, glossed word by word — free to read, always. Browse the whole library.
Also on our shelves:
Odyssey 8.285 — The Great Library Project interlinear edition · greatlibraryproject.com/book/odyssey/8.285/