Odyssey 9.485 · Book 9, lines 485–490
Poling off, the crew bends to the oars
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τὴν δʼ αἶψʼ ἤπειρόνδε παλιρρόθιον φέρε κῦμα, πλημυρὶς ἐκ πόντοιο, θέμωσε δὲ χέρσον ἱκέσθαι. αὐτὰρ ἐγὼ χείρεσσι λαβὼν περιμήκεα κοντὸν ὦσα παρέξ, ἑτάροισι δʼ ἐποτρύνας ἐκέλευσα ἐμβαλέειν κώπῃς, ἵνʼ ὑπὲκ κακότητα φύγοιμεν, κρατὶ κατανεύων· οἱ δὲ προπεσόντες ἔρεσσον.
At once a wave, a flood-tide from the deep, carried it back-surging landward, and drove it to reach dry land. But I, taking in my hands a very long pole, shoved her off alongside; and urging my comrades I bade them lay on to the oars, so that we might flee out from under the ruin, nodding with my head; and they, flinging forward, kept rowing.
Word by word
The setting
The backwash from the falling rock has flung the ship toward land again. Odysseus fights the ship clear.
A note on this passage
The sea itself completes the giant's throw. The wave the boulder raised runs back to shore and carries the ship with it, almost beaching them a second time. Odysseus answers with a boatman's ordinary tools — a long pole to push off, a silent nod of the head to spur the rowers — and the crew throws itself onto the oars.
The undercurrent is the return to human competence. After the monstrous scale of the last lines, the escape is won by seamanship: a pole, a gesture, muscle on wood. Odysseus signals with his head rather than his voice, and the reason is coming — a single shout will undo everything he has just saved.
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