When the cups had gone round Alcinous told the counselors to go home and sleep. At dawn he would call a larger gathering, sacrifice for the guest, and arrange a convoy so the man might reach his country without hardship — however far it lay. Once home he would take the luck he was born with, like anyone else.
Alcinous told Pontonous to mix wine for offerings to Zeus the thunderer, protector of those who come in need. When the cups had gone round and each man had drunk as he wished, the king spoke again of tomorrow’s sacrifice and the stranger’s escort.
“It may be he is a god among us,” Alcinous added. “But usually the gods show themselves clearly when we offer them hecatombs. They sit at our tables without disguise. We are near kin to the immortals — as near as the Cyclopes and the wild giants.”
Odysseus said he had nothing immortal in body or mind. He looked most like the men among them who suffered hardest. Even in grief an empty belly was a hard master; it forced a man to eat and set sorrow aside for a time. Let them send him at daybreak. He would be glad to die if he could first see his house and people again.
They agreed he should have his escort. After the last pour they went each to his bed, leaving Odysseus with Arete and Alcinous. Arete spoke first — she knew the cloak and tunic as work of her own hands and her maids’.
“Stranger, who are you, and from where? Who gave you these clothes? You said you came from over the sea.” Odysseus answered that the full tale of his pains would take too long, but he would answer her question.