Odyssey 9.550 · Book 9, lines 550–555
The ram, and the god who would not hear
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ἀρνειὸν δʼ ἐμοὶ οἴῳ ἐυκνήμιδες ἑταῖροι μήλων δαιομένων δόσαν ἔξοχα· τὸν δʼ ἐπὶ θινὶ Ζηνὶ κελαινεφέι Κρονίδῃ, ὃς πᾶσιν ἀνάσσει, ῥέξας μηρίʼ ἔκαιον· ὁ δʼ οὐκ ἐμπάζετο ἱρῶν, ἀλλʼ ὅ γε μερμήριξεν ὅπως ἀπολοίατο πᾶσαι νῆες ἐύσσελμοι καὶ ἐμοὶ ἐρίηρες ἑταῖροι.
But to me alone my well-greaved companions gave the ram, when the flocks were shared, as a special gift; and on the shore, to Zeus of the dark clouds, son of Cronus, who rules over all, I burned it, sacrificing the thigh-pieces. But he heeded not the offerings; instead he was pondering how they all might perish, the well-benched ships and my trusty companions.
Word by word
The setting
The flocks are shared out. Odysseus's own men single out the great ram — the one under which he rode from the cave — as his special portion, and he offers it to Zeus.
A note on this passage
The men give Odysseus the ram as a gift of honour, and he burns its thigh-pieces to Zeus, king over all. The lines have the full shape of a correct sacrifice: the right beast, the right god, the smoke going up from the shore.
The undercurrent is that the sacrifice fails. The poem says plainly that Zeus took no notice of the offering; instead he was already planning that all the ships and all the trusted crews should be destroyed. The ritual is performed rightly and answered with doom — a reminder that here piety buys no safety, and that the losses ahead are not accident but plan.
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