Odyssey 8.555 · Book 8, lines 555–558
Ships that need no pilot
Read the full text in our reader
εἰπὲ δέ μοι γαῖάν τε· τεὴν δῆμόν τε πόλιν τε, ὄφρα σε τῇ πέμπωσι τιτυσκόμεναι φρεσὶ νῆες· οὐ γὰρ Φαιήκεσσι κυβερνητῆρες ἔασιν, οὐδέ τι πηδάλιʼ ἔστι, τά τʼ ἄλλαι νῆες ἔχουσιν·
And tell me your land, your people and city, so that the ships may convey you thither, aiming with their wits. For the Phaeacians have no steersmen, nor are there any rudders such as other ships have.
Word by word
The setting
Alcinous asks for the guest's country, people, and city — knowledge his ships will need. He begins to describe those ships: the Phaeacians carry no steersmen and no rudders.
A note on this passage
The request turns navigational: name your land so the ships can steer for it. Then the marvel — Phaeacian ships need no helmsman and no rudder, unlike every other vessel afloat. The wonder is dropped in as plain fact, the way a proud host mentions the best thing his house can do.
The Phaeacians are the poem's fairy-tale sailors, a people whose whole art is exactly the convoy home that Odysseus most needs. Their ships know the way by themselves. It is the gentlest possible contrast with the hero's own voyage — twenty years of storms and wrong turnings — that a boat might simply pick a man up and carry him home.
Read the full commentary — and tap any word for its dictionary entry — in the interlinear reader.
Open Odyssey 8.555 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 8.555 — The Great Library Project interlinear edition · greatlibraryproject.com/book/odyssey/8.555/