Odysseus' Vocabulary

Plumb

In a vertical or perpendicular line.......They tied me up, then plumb amidships, back to the mast, lashed to the mast, and took themselves again to rowing.

Guile

cleverness... Men hold me formidable for guile in peace and war: this fame has gone abroad to the sky's rim.

Tumult

disturbance........But scarcely had that island faded in blue air than I saw smoke and white water, with sound of waves in tumult a sound the men heard, and it terrified them.

Sphinx

having a woman's head and a lions body........ Or a monstrous, mysterious sphinx aloof from all that lives.

Omnipotent

having unlimited power........ that is the miracle of Greek Mythology a humanized world men freed from the paralyzing fear of an omnipotent unknown.

Rudders

plat of metal at the back of the ship for direction.........You at the tiller, listen and take in all that I say- the rudders are your duty.

Shambling

shuffling... Sheep after sheep they butchered by the surf, and shambling cattle, feasting - while fugitives went inland, running to call to arms the main force of Cicones.

Colossus

statue; bigger than life size................ In Egypt, a towering colossus immobile, beyond the power of the imagination to endow with movement as fixed in the stone as the tremendous temple colunms, a representation of the human shape delibratley made un human.

Roused

to excite.....I made straight for the ship, roused up the men, to get aboard and cast off at the stern.

Purling

to flow with a murmuring sound......Pleased by each purling note, like honey twining from her throat and my throat.

Formidable

unable to be defeated... Men hold me formidable for guile in peace and war: this fame has gone abroad to the sky's rim.

Dire

urgent, desperate.......She ate them as they shrieked there, in her den, in the dire grapple, reaching still for me- and deathly pity ran me through at that sight- far the worst I ever suffered, questing the passes of the strange sea.