Odyssey 8.31 · Book 8, lines 31–33
As before, speed the stranger home
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ἡμεῖς δʼ, ὡς τὸ πάρος περ ἐποτρυνώμεθα πομπήν. οὐδὲ γὰρ οὐδέ τις ἄλλος, ὅτις κʼ ἐμὰ δώμαθʼ ἵκηται, ἐνθάδʼ ὀδυρόμενος δηρὸν μένει εἵνεκα πομπῆς.
But we, as before, let us speed on the convoy. For no other man either, whoever comes to my house, lingers here long, grieving, for want of escort.
Word by word
The setting
Alcinous, king of the Phaeacians, is still addressing the assembly about the unnamed stranger (Odysseus). He turns from summoning the elders to the practical business of the man's convoy home — the Phaeacians' famous gift of safe passage.
A note on this passage
Alcinous keeps to the plain business of hospitality: let us arrange the man's passage home, as we always do. He states it as routine — no guest who reaches this house sits waiting and grieving for lack of a ship.
The undercurrent is Phaeacian identity. Conveying strangers over the sea is what these people are; the boast is casual because the deed is habitual. The reader, though, already knows a shadow the king does not: Poseidon has been promised a reckoning for exactly this kind of easy escort. The routine kindness is quietly on a collision course with a god.
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