Odyssey 8.564 · Book 8, lines 564–566
Nausithous's warning
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ἀλλὰ τόδʼ ὥς ποτε πατρὸς ἐγὼν εἰπόντος ἄκουσα Ναυσιθόου, ὃς ἔφασκε Ποσειδάωνʼ ἀγάσασθαι ἡμῖν, οὕνεκα πομποὶ ἀπήμονές εἰμεν ἁπάντων.
But this I once heard my father Nausithous say— he who kept saying that Poseidon bore a grudge against us, because we are safe escorts of all men.
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The setting
Alcinous checks his own boast. He recalls a warning from his father Nausithous: that Poseidon resents the Phaeacians because they give safe passage to everyone.
A note on this passage
The pride turns to unease. Alcinous remembers his father saying that Poseidon begrudges them — and that the very safety they offer all comers is the offense. The kindness is itself the crime.
This is how divine anger works in the poem: not at wickedness but at encroachment. The Phaeacians harm no one; they simply do too well the one thing — safe passage over the sea — that belongs to Poseidon's own domain. The god who has hunted Odysseus across the water resents the very people about to carry him home, and the old warning now hangs over the convoy being readied for the guest.
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