Odyssey 9.480 · Book 9, line 480
The giant's rage
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ὣς ἐφάμην, ὁ δʼ ἔπειτα χολώσατο κηρόθι μᾶλλον,
So I spoke, and thereupon he grew all the more enraged at heart,
Word by word
The setting
Odysseus's mockery lands. Stung, the Cyclops is seized with fresh fury — the first motion of the response that will hurl a mountain-peak down at the ship.
A note on this passage
One line, and it is all reaction. The taunt goes home, and the giant's anger flares hotter than it was before.
The comparative does the work: the more enraged — angrier than he already was, blinded and robbed and now mocked. Homer holds the sentence open at a comma, and the unfinished grammar leans forward into what comes next: a hand groping along the ground for a hilltop to throw. The provocation has a physics, and it is already in motion.
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