Odyssey 8.408 · Book 8, lines 408–411
May the storm-winds take a hard word
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Euryalus — χαῖρε, πάτερ ὦ ξεῖνε· ἔπος δʼ εἴ πέρ τι βέβακται δεινόν, ἄφαρ τὸ φέροιεν ἀναρπάξασαι ἄελλαι. σοὶ δὲ θεοὶ ἄλοχόν τʼ ἰδέειν καὶ πατρίδʼ ἱκέσθαι δοῖεν, ἐπεὶ δὴ δηθὰ φίλων ἄπο πήματα πάσχεις.
Hail, father stranger! And if even any harsh word has been spoken, may the storm-winds at once snatch it up and carry it off. And may the gods grant you to see your wife and reach your fatherland, since indeed for long you have suffered woes far from your dear ones.
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The setting
Euryalus addresses the stranger. He wishes any harsh word he spoke gone with the wind, and prays the gods grant the guest his wife and homeland again, since he has long suffered far from those he loves.
A note on this passage
Euryalus makes his peace gracefully. He wishes any dreadful word he let slip snatched up and carried off by the winds, and then prays the highest blessing this world knows: that the gods let the stranger see his wife again and reach his own country.
Neither man's name has been spoken yet, and that is the whole point. Euryalus prays, blindly, for the one thing the poem is about — the return of a husband to a wife across long years of suffering. He is speaking to Odysseus, whose wife and fatherland are the ache under every line, and he does not know it. His apology becomes, by accident, the truest wish anyone has made the man.
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