Odyssey 9.494 · Book 9, lines 494–499
The crew: why provoke him?
Read the full text in our reader
the crew — σχέτλιε, τίπτʼ ἐθέλεις ἐρεθιζέμεν ἄγριον ἄνδρα; ὃς καὶ νῦν πόντονδε βαλὼν βέλος ἤγαγε νῆα αὖτις ἐς ἤπειρον, καὶ δὴ φάμεν αὐτόθʼ ὀλέσθαι. εἰ δὲ φθεγξαμένου τευ ἢ αὐδήσαντος ἄκουσε, σύν κεν ἄραξʼ ἡμέων κεφαλὰς καὶ νήια δοῦρα μαρμάρῳ ὀκριόεντι βαλών· τόσσον γὰρ ἵησιν.
Reckless one, why do you wish to provoke a savage man? Even now he hurled his missile into the sea and drove the ship back to the shore, and indeed we thought we would perish on the spot. And if he had heard anyone making a sound or speaking, he would have smashed together our heads and the ship's timbers, hurling a jagged block of stone — so far does he hurl.
Word by word
The setting
Odysseus's men, hearing him start to shout at the Cyclops, beg him to stop.
A note on this passage
The crew's plea is plain and frightened. They call Odysseus σχέτλιος — 'reckless,' the man who will not leave well alone — and lay out the danger in order: the last throw nearly sank them, and a second one, aimed at any sound, would crush both the men and the ship at once.
The undercurrent is the crew's clear sight. They understand the giant's one weapon — he throws by ear, at a voice — and so the safe course is silence. Their reasoning is exactly right, which is what makes the coming refusal so costly: Odysseus is not warned by fools but by men who have measured the danger better than he has.
Read the full commentary — and tap any word for its dictionary entry — in the interlinear reader.
Open Odyssey 9.494 in the full reader
Always open passages in the reader
From the Great Library
You are reading a page of the Odyssey — the whole book is free in our interlinear reader.
The Great Library Project presses the classics in their original languages, glossed word by word — free to read, always. Browse the whole library.
Also on our shelves:
Odyssey 9.494 — The Great Library Project interlinear edition · greatlibraryproject.com/book/odyssey/9.494/