Odyssey 9.250 · Book 9, lines 250–255
'Strangers, who are you?'
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αὐτὰρ ἐπεὶ δὴ σπεῦσε πονησάμενος τὰ ἃ ἔργα, καὶ τότε πῦρ ἀνέκαιε καὶ εἴσιδεν, εἴρετο δʼ ἡμέας·
Polyphemus — ὦ ξεῖνοι, τίνες ἐστέ; πόθεν πλεῖθʼ ὑγρὰ κέλευθα; ἦ τι κατὰ πρῆξιν ἦ μαψιδίως ἀλάλησθε, οἷά τε ληιστῆρες, ὑπεὶρ ἅλα, τοί τʼ ἀλόωνται ψυχὰς παρθέμενοι κακὸν ἀλλοδαποῖσι φέροντες;
But when he had hurried, laboring at his own tasks, then he kindled a fire and caught sight of us, and asked us: Strangers, who are you? From where do you sail the watery ways? Is it on some business, or aimlessly do you wander, like raiders over the sea, who rove staking their lives, bringing evil to foreigners?
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The setting
His chores done, Polyphemus lights his fire, notices the intruders, and speaks — the standard host's question to newcomers, but from a giant who owes no one hospitality.
A note on this passage
The Cyclops asks the formulaic guest-question every Greek host puts to a newcomer: who are you, where from, traders or pirates? The words are the ordinary courtesy of the sea-world. But they come after the door is shut, from a speaker under no obligation to honor them.
The undercurrent is a rite turned inside out. In a proper house the question follows food and welcome; here it precedes them, an interrogation rather than a greeting. Homer sets the whole machinery of xenia running in the one place it will be broken — and the pirate-slur stings hardest, for the giant accuses his prisoners of the very predation he is about to commit.
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