Odyssey 8.401 · Book 8, lines 401–405
Euryalus offers the bronze sword
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Euryalus — Ἀλκίνοε κρεῖον, πάντων ἀριδείκετε λαῶν, τοιγὰρ ἐγὼ τὸν ξεῖνον ἀρέσσομαι, ὡς σὺ κελεύεις. δώσω οἱ τόδʼ ἄορ παγχάλκεον, ᾧ ἔπι κώπη ἀργυρέη, κολεὸν δὲ νεοπρίστου ἐλέφαντος ἀμφιδεδίνηται· πολέος δέ οἱ ἄξιον ἔσται.
Alcinous, lord, most glorious of all peoples, therefore I will make amends to the stranger, as you bid. I will give him this all-bronze sword, on which the hilt is of silver, and the scabbard of newly-sawn ivory is worked all around it. And it will be worth much to him.
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The setting
Euryalus, rebuked for taunting the stranger, answers Alcinous. He agrees to make amends and offers the guest a fine all-bronze sword with a silver hilt and a scabbard of fresh-cut ivory.
A note on this passage
Euryalus obeys without a word of protest, and his amends take the Homeric form: not a speech of contrition but an object. He hands over a sword — bronze blade, silver hilt, a scabbard of fresh-cut ivory worked around it — and prices it aloud, worth much.
The care goes into the thing, not the feeling. The poem lingers over the metalwork the way it lingered over Hephaestus's craft earlier in the book, because here an apology is measured in what it costs. Euryalus had insulted the stranger by calling him a trader, no true athlete; he answers now with treasure a trader would prize, and the gift does the work the words cannot.
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