Characters
- Alcinous — recalls prophecy; stops conveyances; orders sacrifice
- Lyssa — offended by safe escorts; petrifies the ship
- Nausithous — Alcinous’s father; author of the prophecy (named)
- Phaeacian crew — turned to stone with their vessel (as ship)
- Philotes — allows limited vengeance
- Thyestes — already landed; unaware of the punishment (background)
Places
- Ithaca shore — where the ship had just delivered Odysseus
- Scheria — witnesses; threatened with a mountain
- Sea off Scheria — petrifaction
Themes
Narrative
After the Phaeacians convey sleeping Odysseus to Ithaca with gifts and leave him on the shore, Poseidon complains to Zeus that he is dishonored: mortals will cease to respect him if Scheria escorts every castaway home. Zeus permits him to punish within measure. As the Phaeacian ship races back and the city is almost in sight, Poseidon turns it to stone and roots it in the sea—still shaped like a swift hull, now a rock for men to marvel at. Alcinous remembers his father’s prophecy that Poseidon would one day wreck a homecoming ship and throw a mountain about the city; he bids the people cease conveying strangers and offer sacrifice of twelve choice bulls to Poseidon, praying he spare Scheria the mountain.
The petrified ship closes the Phaeacian episode: their cursed excellence at escort becomes their last escort. Catalogue the divine bargain, the ship’s metamorphosis in mid-harbor approach, and Alcinous’s curtailment of hospitality as one aetiology of why Scheria vanishes from Odysseus’s later world.