8.165-198

τὸν δ᾽ ἄρ᾽ ὑπόδρα ἰδὼν προσέφη πολύμητις Ὀδυσσεύς·
"ξεῖν᾽, οὐ καλὸν ἔειπες· ἀτασθάλῳ ἀνδρὶ ἔοικας.
οὕτως οὐ πάντεσσι θεοὶ χαρίεντα διδοῦσιν
ἀνδράσιν, οὔτε φυὴν οὔτ᾽ ἂρ φρένας οὔτ᾽ ἀγορητύν.
ἄλλος μὲν γάρ τ᾽ εἶδος ἀκιδνότερος πέλει ἀνήρ,
ἀλλὰ θεὸς μορφὴν ἔπεσι στέφει, οἱ δέ τ᾽ ἐς αὐτὸν
τερπόμενοι λεύσσουσιν· ὁ δ᾽ ἀσφαλέως ἀγορεύει
αἰδοῖ μειλιχίῃ, μετὰ δὲ πρέπει ἀγρομένοισιν,
ἐρχόμενον δ᾽ ἀνὰ ἄστυ θεὸν ὣς εἰσορόωσιν.
ἄλλος δ᾽ αὖ εἶδος μὲν ἀλίγκιος ἀθανάτοισιν,
ἀλλ᾽ οὔ οἱ χάρις ἀμφιπεριστέφεται ἐπέεσσιν,
ὡς καὶ σοὶ εἶδος μὲν ἀριπρεπές, οὐδέ κεν ἄλλως
οὐδὲ θεὸς τεύξειε, νόον δ᾽ ἀποφώλιός ἐσσι."

Glaring from under his brows, many-minded Odysseus spoke:
“Friend, that was not well said; you seem like a reckless man.
So it is that the gods do not give graces to all
men, neither in stature nor wits nor skill at speaking.
One man may be less handsome to look at,
but the god puts comeliness in his words, and others
look on him with delight; he speaks faultlessly,
with pleasing modesty, and stands out among those gathered,
and they look on him like a god as he goes through the town.
Another is beautiful, godlike to look upon,
But his words are not crowned with grace, as is the case
with you, whose beauty shines forth, and not even
a god would make it otherwise, but your mind is empty.”

Odyssey 8.165–77

A roundabout way to tell the young man he’s a nitwit, we might think. But the speech serves two purposes for the poet. It showcases Odysseus’s own skill as a speaker, but more importantly, it brings up again the theme of appearance and reality, which has surfaced so often before in the poem. The craggy sailor doesn’t look like much to the swaggering young men, but they’re in for a surprise.

Now comes the big moment. Rising up (ἀναΐξας, 186), the weathered stranger grabs an even bigger discus than the one the Phaeacians have been using and lets it fly. The poet has some fun with the next image:

βόμβησεν δὲ λίθος· κατὰ δ᾽ ἔπτηξαν ποτὶ γαίῃ
Φαίηκες δολιχήρετμοι, ναυσίκλυτοι ἄνδρες,
λᾶος ὑπὸ ῥιπῆς·

The stone hummed, and the Phaeacian men, who ply
the long oars, famous sailors, fell to the ground
as the stone flew over their heads.

Odyssey 8.190–92

The nasty hum of the discus while the spectators—including the two princes, one assumes— hit the deck is a delicious touch. But our immediate delight is only the beginning of the complex reaction this moment is meant to evoke. The powerful toss reveals the formidable force of an epic hero, and the function of the sailor’s homily on deceiving appearances becomes clear. Beneath all the grimy wrinkles lurks Odysseus. He is not identified here, because the poet is building slowly toward that big revelation, teasing us by raising expectations that will go unfulfilled a little longer. But the narrative rhythm replicates what we will see later in the evening and several times thereafter, the anonymous hero rising in the esteem of his hosts, gaining leverage until he reemerges as Odysseus. We see here the importance of having the princes speak for the sailor’s competitors. In the aristocratic view of epic heroism, excellence is inherited through blood, and some guy who washes up on shore naked is not expected to emerge victorious over royalty. Note that the first to hail the stranger’s mark is Athena, who always appears in support of the story she has arranged, Odysseus’s successful defeat of the suitors and the reestablishment of right order, with all its aristocratic hierarchies affirmed, in Ithaka.

From a different perspective, the sailor’s winning toss can appear as the triumph of an underdog, upsetting the social hierarchy, represented by the royal princes. This view reflects the world of the anonymous stranger, an outsider who enters the settled precincts of the powerful and injects new energy. Odysseus occupies this persona for most of the poem, infiltrating various societies and effecting changes that are not always welcome to the locals. The wisdom and richness of the Odyssey has everything to do with the poet’s ability to keep both perspectives, and the values they dramatize, alive in the story (see the Introduction).

An analogous situation later in the poem, for which this one is the paradigm, prompts the same kind of dualling perspectives. Iros, a mean-tempered beggar, comes across Odysseus, himself now disguised as a beggar in rags, in the forecourt of the royal palace in Ithaka and orders him to scram. Odysseus tries to defuse the tension at first, offering to share the doorway to the palace. Iros continues to fling insults at the newcomer until Antinous, a leader of the suitors, notices the dispute:

ὦ φίλοι, οὐ μέν πώ τι πάρος τοιοῦτον ἐτύχθη,
οἵην τερπωλὴν θεὸς ἤγαγεν ἐς τόδε δῶμα.
ὁ ξεῖνός τε καὶ Ἶρος ἐρίζετον ἀλλήλοιϊν
χερσὶ μαχέσσασθαι: ἀλλὰ ξυνελάσσομεν ὦκα.

Friends, never has anything happened to match this,
the entertainment a god has brought to this house.
The stranger and Iros are threatening to fight
each other hand-to-hand. Let’s hurry it along.

Odyssey 18.36–39

The dynamic we see on Scheria recurs here, a sympathetic stranger confronted by a younger man, on whose side are local aristocrats spoiling for a fight. If anything, the edginess is more pronounced here, as the visitor is more of an outsider, his opponent is nastier, and the spectators are clearly eager for bloodshed.

After some further discussion of the arrangements for the fight, with Euryalus and Antinous, the two leaders of the arrogant suitors on one side and Telemachus on the other, the stranger steps into the ring:

ὣς ἔφαθ᾽, οἱ δ᾽ ἄρα πάντες ἐπῄνεον: αὐτὰρ Ὀδυσσεὺς
ζώσατο μὲν ῥάκεσιν περὶ μήδεα, φαῖνε δὲ μηροὺς
καλούς τε μεγάλους τε, φάνεν δέ οἱ εὐρέες ὦμοι
στήθεά τε στιβαροί τε βραχίονες: αὐτὰρ Ἀθήνη
ἄγχι παρισταμένη μέλε᾽ ἤλδανε ποιμένι λαῶν.
μνηστῆρες δ᾽ ἄρα πάντες ὑπερφιάλως ἀγάσαντο:

So [Telemachus] spoke, and they all agreed. But Odysseus
tucked up his rags around his loins, and his thighs appeared,
splendid and huge, and his wide shoulders shown forth
and his chest and brawny arms; but Athena,
standing beside the shepherd of the people made his limbs bigger.
And the suitors in their arrogance all gazed at him, astonished.

Odyssey 18.67–72

Once again, appearances have been deceptive; once again, Athena is on hand to strengthen her favorite’s case; and once again, the underdog wins, flattening the hapless Iros with one punch, much to the delight of the suitors, to whom this is all a game. Verses 68–70 here echo Laodamas’ assessment of the sailor he invites to join the contest in Book 8:

          φυήν γε μὲν οὐ κακός ἐστι,
μηρούς τε κνήμας τε καὶ ἄμφω χεῖρας ὕπερθεν
αὐχένα τε στιβαρὸν μέγα τε σθένος·

          His build is not bad,
thighs and lower legs and both arms above
and thick neck and strong chest;

Odyssey 8.134–36

The Phaeacian games, like so much of Books 7 and 8, are part of the paradigm Homer is establishing for later events in Ithaka. When tracking this kind of technique in the poem, we need to step back from the particulars of the two venues, Scheria and Ithaka, and listen for the underlying rhythms and structures. The beggar who fascinates Penelope in Ithaka is walking in the footsteps of that sailor who washes up on the Phaeacian beach and wins over both the nubile princess and her mother the queen. Both personae have one foot in the bright heroic world that Athena is intent on reestablishing with Odysseus reinstalled as king, husband, father, and son, and one in the unglamorous but wider world of the outsider, the wanderer, the adventurer, where Odysseus lives for most of the story. Both worlds are alive in the poem simultaneously, available to us as we follow Odysseus home.

Further Reading

Dimock, G. 1989. The Unity of the Odyssey, 96–99. Amherst, MA: University of Massachusetts Press.

Fenik, B. 1974. Studies in the Odyssey, 153–171. Hermes Einzelschriften 30. Wiesbaden: F. Steiner.