Odyssey 8.374 · Book 8, lines 374–376
Ball to the clouds
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τὴν ἕτερος ῥίπτασκε ποτὶ νέφεα σκιόεντα ἰδνωθεὶς ὀπίσω, ὁ δʼ ἀπὸ χθονὸς ὑψόσʼ ἀερθεὶς ῥηιδίως μεθέλεσκε, πάρος ποσὶν οὖδας ἱκέσθαι.
One of them would fling it toward the shadowy clouds, bending backward; and the other, springing high aloft from the earth, would catch it easily before his feet reached the ground again.
Word by word
The setting
The two dancers begin their solo display. One flings the purple ball high toward the clouds while arching backward; the other springs up to catch it before it can fall to the ground.
A note on this passage
The ball-dance in motion: one dancer arches back and hurls the ball up into the clouds, the other leaps and catches it before he comes down. Homer freezes the athletic beauty of it in three lines.
The two verbs ῥίπτασκε and μεθέλεσκε are iteratives — 'would throw,' 'would catch,' over and over — so the picture is not one throw but a rhythm, the ball rising and returning as the dancers trade turns. It is the same pleasure in skilled making that the poem lavishes on a fitted ship or a woven robe: excellence watched closely and enjoyed for its own sake.
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