Odyssey 9.85 · Book 9, lines 85–87
Water drawn, a last plain meal
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ἔνθα δʼ ἐπʼ ἠπείρου βῆμεν καὶ ἀφυσσάμεθʼ ὕδωρ, αἶψα δὲ δεῖπνον ἕλοντο θοῇς παρὰ νηυσὶν ἑταῖροι. αὐτὰρ ἐπεὶ σίτοιό τʼ ἐπασσάμεθʼ ἠδὲ ποτῆτος,
There we stepped onto the mainland and drew water, and at once the companions took their meal beside the swift ships. But when we had tasted food and drink,
Word by word
The setting
Landfall in the Lotus country. Before any encounter, the crew does the ordinary things sailors do on a strange shore — take on fresh water, eat a meal by the beached ships.
A note on this passage
A quiet beachhead. The men come ashore, fill their water-skins, and eat beside the hauled-up ships — the plainest routine in the poem, and a deliberate calm before the strangeness. Homer lets a whole line of ordinary shore-work pass before anything uncanny happens.
The care is structural. The Lotus, when it comes, will make men forget food, home, and the ships entirely — so the poet first shows them eating, watering, tending the fleet, doing exactly the things the flower will erase. The type-scene of the meal, usually a mark of civilised order, here becomes the last such meal before appetite itself is turned against them.
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