This text is part of:
Then Euryalos reviled him
outright and said, "I gather, then, that you are unskilled in any of
the many sports athloi that men generally delight in. I
suppose you are one of those grasping traders that go about in ships
as captains or merchants, and who think of nothing but of their
outward freights and homeward cargoes. There does not seem to be much
of the athlete [athlêtês] about
you."
"For shame, sir," answered
Odysseus, fiercely, "you are an insolent man - so true is it that the
gods do not grace all men alike in speech, person, and understanding.
One man may be of weak presence, but heaven has adorned this with
such a good conversation that he charms every one who sees him; his
honeyed moderation [aidôs] carries his hearers
with him so that he is leader in all assemblies of his fellows, and
wherever he goes he is looked up to. Another may be as handsome as a
god, but his good looks are not crowned with verbal grace
[kharis]. This is your case. No god could make a finer
looking man than you are, but you are empty with respect to
noos. Your ill-judged remarks [contrary to
kosmos] have made me exceedingly angry, for I excel in a
great many athletic exercises [athlos]; indeed, so
long as I had youth and strength, I was among the first athletes of
the age. Now, however, I am worn out by labor and sorrow, for I have
gone through much both on the field of battle and by the waves of the
weary sea; still, in spite of all this I will compete
[athlos], for your taunts have stung me to the
quick."
So he hurried up without even
taking his cloak off, and seized a disc, larger, more massive and
much heavier than those used by the Phaeacians when disc-throwing
among themselves. Then, swinging it back, he threw it from his brawny
hand, and it made a humming sound in the air as he did so. The
Phaeacians quailed beneath the rushing of its flight as it sped
gracefully from his hand, and flew beyond any mark
[sêma] that had been made yet. Athena, in the
form of a man, came and marked the place where it had fallen. "A
blind man, sir," said she, "could easily tell your mark
[sêma] by groping for it - it is so far ahead of
any other. You may make your mind easy about this contest
[athlos], for no Phaeacian can come near to such a
throw as yours."
Odysseus was glad when he found
he had a friend among the lookers-on, so he began to speak more
pleasantly. "Young men," said he, "come up to that throw if you can,
and I will throw another disc as heavy or even heavier. If anyone
wants to have a bout with me let him come on, for I am exceedingly
angry; I will box, wrestle, or run, I do not care what it is, with
any man of you all except Laodamas, but not with him because I am his
guest, and one cannot compete with one's own personal friend. At
least I do not think it a prudent or a sensible thing for a guest to
challenge his host's family at any game [athlos],
especially when he is in a foreign dêmos. He will cut
the ground from under his own feet if he does; but I make no
exception as regards any one else, for I want to have the matter out
and know which is the best man. I am a good hand at every kind of
athletic sport [athlos] known among humankind. I am an
excellent archer. In battle I am always the first to bring a man down
with my arrow, no matter how many more are taking aim at him
alongside of me. Philoctetes was the only man who could shoot better
than I could when we Achaeans were before the dêmos of
the Trojans. I far excel every one else in the whole world, of those
who still eat bread upon the face of the earth, but I should not like
to shoot against the mighty dead, such as Herakles, or Eurytos the
Cechalian- men who could shoot against the gods themselves. This in
fact was how Eurytos came prematurely by his end, for Apollo was
angry with him and killed him because he challenged him as an archer.
I can throw a dart farther than any one else can shoot an arrow.
Running is the only point in respect of which I am afraid some of the
Phaeacians might beat me, for I have been brought down very low at
sea; my provisions ran short, and therefore I am still
weak."
This work is licensed under a
Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 3.0 United States License.
An XML version of this text is available for download, with the additional restriction that you offer Perseus any modifications you make. Perseus provides credit for all accepted changes, storing new additions in a versioning system.