Odyssey 9.281 · Book 9, lines 281–286
The lie about the ship
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ὣς φάτο πειράζων, ἐμὲ δʼ οὐ λάθεν εἰδότα πολλά, ἀλλά μιν ἄψορρον προσέφην δολίοις ἐπέεσσι·
Odysseus — νέα μέν μοι κατέαξε Ποσειδάων ἐνοσίχθων πρὸς πέτρῃσι βαλὼν ὑμῆς ἐπὶ πείρασι γαίης, ἄκρῃ προσπελάσας· ἄνεμος δʼ ἐκ πόντου ἔνεικεν· αὐτὰρ ἐγὼ σὺν τοῖσδε ὑπέκφυγον αἰπὺν ὄλεθρον.
So he spoke, testing me, but he did not escape me, who knew much. But I answered him back again with cunning words: Poseidon the earth-shaker shattered my ship for me, hurling it against the rocks at the bounds of your land, driving it onto a headland; and the wind bore it out of the sea. But I, with these men, escaped sheer destruction.
Word by word
The setting
Polyphemus was probing for the ship. Odysseus, who misses nothing, answers with a lie: Poseidon has already wrecked the vessel on the rocks, and only this handful of men survived.
A note on this passage
Odysseus catches the probe at once and meets it with a lie. There is no ship on any headland; it is safely hidden. By handing Poseidon the blame for a wreck that never happened, he keeps the rest of his crew off the giant's map.
The undercurrent is how the lie feeds on the truth. Poseidon really is Odysseus's enemy, and really will hound him by sea — the audience on Scheria knows it. The false story is built from a real one, which is exactly why it is convincing. The man of many turns lies best when the lie is nine-tenths fact.
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