I’m on the edge of my seat reading this in Homer's The Odyssey, Book VIII, “How They Held
Games and Sports in Phaiacia” (translated by Samuel Butler):
[Alcinous
said,] "Aldermen and town councillors of the Phaeacians, we have had
enough now, both of the feast, and of the minstrelsy that is its due
accompaniment; let us proceed therefore to the athletic sports, so that
[Odysseus] our guest on his return home may be able to tell his friends how
much we surpass all other nations as boxers, wrestlers, jumpers, and runners. .
. .
The foot
races came first. The course was set out for them from the starting post, and
they raised a dust upon the plain as they all flew forward at the same moment.
Clytoneus came in first by a long way; he left every one else behind him by the
length of the furrow that a couple of mules can plough in a fallow field. They
then turned to the painful art of wrestling, and here Euryalus proved to be the
best man. Amphialus excelled all the others in jumping, while at throwing the
disc there was no one who could approach Elatreus. Alcinous's son Laodamas was
the best boxer, and he it was who presently said, when they had all been
diverted with the games, ‘Let us ask the stranger whether he excels in any of
these sports; he seems very powerfully built; his thighs, claves, hands, and
neck are of prodigious strength, nor is he at all old, but he has suffered much
lately, and there is nothing like the sea for making havoc with a man, no
matter how strong he is . . . .’"
‘I hope,
Sir, that you will enter yourself for some one or other of our competitions if
you are skilled in any of them- and you must have gone in for many a one before
now. There is nothing that does any one so much credit all his life long as the
showing himself a proper man with his hands and feet. Have a try therefore at
something, and banish all sorrow from your mind. Your return home will not be
long delayed, for the ship is already drawn into the water, and the crew is
found. . . . ‘
[Odysseus]
answered, ‘Laodamas, why do you taunt me in this way? my mind is set rather on
cares than contests; I have been through infinite trouble, and am come among
you now as a suppliant, praying your king and people to further me on my return
home. . . .’
“Then
Euryalus reviled him outright and said, ‘I gather, then, that you are unskilled
in any of the many sports 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 about you. . . .’
[Odysseus]
answered, ‘I am worn out by labour 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, 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 that had been made yet.
Minerva, 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 by groping for it- it is so far ahead of any other. You may make your
mind easy about this contest, for no Phaeacian can come near to such a throw as
yours.’"
