Odyssey 8.567 · Book 8, lines 567–570
The prophecy of the mountain
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φῆ ποτὲ Φαιήκων ἀνδρῶν ἐυεργέα νῆα ἐκ πομπῆς ἀνιοῦσαν ἐν ἠεροειδέι πόντῳ ῥαισέμεναι, μέγα δʼ ἧμιν ὄρος πόλει ἀμφικαλύψειν. ὣς ἀγόρευʼ ὁ γέρων· τὰ δέ κεν θεὸς ἢ τελέσειεν
He said that one day a well-built ship of Phaeacian men, returning from a convoy on the misty sea, he would shatter, and a great mountain he would fling around our city So spoke the old man; but these things a god might either fulfill.
Word by word
The setting
Alcinous relays the prophecy in full: one day Poseidon would wreck a Phaeacian ship as it returned from a convoy, and throw a great mountain around the city. So the old king spoke — whether a god will bring it to pass is left hanging.
A note on this passage
The threat is named exactly: a homing Phaeacian ship shattered on the misty sea, and a mountain flung round the town to wall it off. These are Nausithous's words, carried across a generation by his son and spoken now, of all moments, over a stranger's convoy.
The poem plants a fuse. This same convoy — the one Alcinous is readying for Odysseus — is the one the prophecy dooms. Homer lets the old king trail off on whether a god might fulfill it, the classic hedge before a fated thing; but the reader is meant to hear the mountain already rising. The Phaeacians' kindness to Odysseus may cost them the sea itself.
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