Odyssey 8.343 · Book 8, lines 343–345
Laughter among the gods — but not Poseidon
Read the full text in our reader
ὣς ἔφατʼ, ἐν δὲ γέλως ὦρτʼ ἀθανάτοισι θεοῖσιν. οὐδὲ Ποσειδάωνα γέλως ἔχε, λίσσετο δʼ αἰεὶ Ἥφαιστον κλυτοεργὸν ὅπως λύσειεν Ἄρηα.
So he spoke, and laughter rose up among the immortal gods. But laughter did not seize Poseidon; he kept ever begging Hephaestus, the famed craftsman, to set Ares free.
Word by word
The setting
The exchange of jokes over the trapped lovers ends. The narrator describes the gods' reaction — and Poseidon's different one.
A note on this passage
So the tale reaches its peak: laughter breaks out and runs through the immortals at the sight of the two lovers caught fast. Only Poseidon does not share it. Grave and unlaughing, he keeps pressing Hephaestus with one request — let Ares go.
The single sober figure in a room of laughter is worth marking. The sea-god plays the earnest broker here, the one who takes an obligation seriously enough to intervene, and the scene sets up the small legal comedy to follow: a pledge, a guarantee, a debt. It is a strange, quiet joke of the poem that this same Poseidon, so reasonable among the gods, is the one whose unrelenting grudge drives the whole story of Odysseus.
Read the full commentary — and tap any word for its dictionary entry — in the interlinear reader.
Open Odyssey 8.343 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 8.343 — The Great Library Project interlinear edition · greatlibraryproject.com/book/odyssey/8.343/