Odyssey 9.387 · Book 9, lines 387–390
The eye hisses in the fire
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ὣς τοῦ ἐν ὀφθαλμῷ πυριήκεα μοχλὸν ἑλόντες δινέομεν, τὸν δʼ αἷμα περίρρεε θερμὸν ἐόντα. πάντα δέ οἱ βλέφαρʼ ἀμφὶ καὶ ὀφρύας εὗσεν ἀυτμὴ γλήνης καιομένης, σφαραγεῦντο δέ οἱ πυρὶ ῥίζαι.
So, taking the fire-pointed stake in his eye, we whirled it, and the blood flowed round it as it was hot. And the blast singed all his eyelids around and his brows, as the eyeball burned, and its roots crackled with the fire.
Word by word
The setting
The glowing stake is in the socket. Homer holds the moment of the blinding close, ear as well as eye, before the great smith-simile that follows.
A note on this passage
The point-of-view stays merciless and close. Gripping the fire-pointed stake in the socket, they spin it, and the hot blood runs round the shaft; the sheer heat scorches the eyelids and brows away, and the eyeball bursts and hisses as its roots burn.
The undercurrent is the sound. The verb spharageûnto — the roots of the eye crackling in the fire — makes the reader hear the blinding, not just see it. Homer is setting up the great simile that follows, of a smith plunging hot iron into water to temper it; the hiss of the quenched eye is the hinge, turning a scene of butchery into a moment of grim, exact craft.
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