Odyssey 9.382 · Book 9, lines 382–386
Boring the eye like a shipwright
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οἱ μὲν μοχλὸν ἑλόντες ἐλάινον, ὀξὺν ἐπʼ ἄκρῳ, ὀφθαλμῷ ἐνέρεισαν· ἐγὼ δʼ ἐφύπερθεν ἐρεισθεὶς δίνεον, ὡς ὅτε τις τρυπῷ δόρυ νήιον ἀνὴρ τρυπάνῳ, οἱ δέ τʼ ἔνερθεν ὑποσσείουσιν ἱμάντι ἁψάμενοι ἑκάτερθε, τὸ δὲ τρέχει ἐμμενὲς αἰεί.
They, taking the olive stake, sharp at its tip, thrust it into his eye; and I, leaning on from above, whirled it, as when a man bores a ship's timber with a drill, while others below keep it spinning with a strap, grasping it on either side, and it runs steadily, ever.
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The setting
The stake is glowing and ready, the men's courage is up. Now comes the blow the whole plan was built for — told through the image of a craftsman at his drill.
A note on this passage
The blinding, told with terrible calm. Four men drive the glowing point into the single eye while Odysseus bears down from above and twists — and Homer reaches, at the peak of the horror, for the homeliest of images: a shipwright drilling a beam, others working the strap that spins the bit.
The undercurrent is the craftsman's simile itself. The most violent act in the poem is described as skilled work, a team boring timber, and that is exactly right for Odysseus: the blinding is not a warrior's rage but an engineered job, patient and cooperative. The mind that built the Trojan horse is at work again, and the monster's eye is just another piece of wood to be bored.
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