Odyssey 9.424 · Book 9, lines 424–427
The rams, and the withies
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ἥδε δέ μοι κατὰ θυμὸν ἀρίστη φαίνετο βουλή. ἄρσενες ὄιες ἦσαν ἐυτρεφέες, δασύμαλλοι, καλοί τε μεγάλοι τε, ἰοδνεφὲς εἶρος ἔχοντες· τοὺς ἀκέων συνέεργον ἐυστρεφέεσσι λύγοισιν,
This seemed to me the best plan in my heart: there were rams, well-fed males, thick-fleeced, fine and large, with wool dark as violets; these, in silence, I bound together with well-twisted withies,
Word by word
The setting
Odysseus settles on his plan. The Cyclops's rams are big, thick-fleeced beasts; working in silence, he lashes them together in threes with the pliant withies the giant sleeps on.
A note on this passage
The plan takes shape as a loving inventory of livestock. Homer lingers on the rams — well-fed, thick-fleeced, big, their wool dark as violets — before telling us what they are for. Then, quietly, Odysseus binds them three abreast with the giant's own osier twigs.
The undercurrent is how the escape is built entirely from the Cyclops's world. The withies the men will hang under are the very ones the monster sleeps upon; the beautiful rams are his flock. Odysseus improvises salvation out of the furniture of his prison, and the word ἀκέων, 'in silence,' holds the whole risk: the blinded giant is a few feet away, listening.
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