Odyssey 9.208 · Book 9, lines 208–210
One cup to twenty of water
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τὸν δʼ ὅτε πίνοιεν μελιηδέα οἶνον ἐρυθρόν, ἓν δέπας ἐμπλήσας ὕδατος ἀνὰ εἴκοσι μέτρα χεῦʼ, ὀδμὴ δʼ ἡδεῖα ἀπὸ κρητῆρος ὀδώδει
And whenever they would drink that honey-sweet red wine, filling one cup, he would pour it into twenty measures of water, and a sweet smell rose from the mixing-bowl,
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Odysseus gives the wine's decisive fact — its strength. Even cut twenty-to-one with water it kept its power, a detail that tells us plainly what neat wine will do to the Cyclops.
A note on this passage
Whenever they drank this red, honey-sweet wine, Maron would fill a single cup and pour it into twenty measures of water — and even so diluted, a sweet fragrance rose from the bowl.
The ratio is the whole point. Greeks normally cut their wine two or three parts water to one; twenty to one is fabulous, and it says without saying that undiluted this is less a drink than a drug. The scent lifting off the watered bowl is the last touch of enchantment before the trap is sprung. By the time the sentence ends, the reader knows something Polyphemus does not: against this wine, poured neat, the giant has no chance.
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