Then Odysseus of many counsels looked fiercely on him and said:  ’Stranger, thou hast not spoken well; thou art like a man presumptuous.  So true it is that the gods do not give every gracious gift to all, neither shapeliness, nor wisdom, nor skilled speech.  For one man is feebler than another in presence, yet the god crowns his words with beauty, and men behold him and rejoice, and his speech runs surely on his way with a sweet modesty, and he shines forth among the gathering of his people, and as he passes through the town men gaze on him as a god.  Another again is like the deathless gods for beauty, but his words have no crown of grace about them; even as thou art in comeliness pre-eminent, nor could a god himself fashion thee for the better, but in wit thou art a weakling.  Yea, thou hast stirred my spirit in my breast by speaking thus amiss.  I am not all unversed in sports, as thy words go, but methinks I was among the foremost while as yet I trusted in my youth and my hands, but now am I holden in misery and pains:  for I have endured much in passing through the wars of men and the grievous waves of the sea.  Yet even so, for all my affliction, I will essay the games, for thy word hath bitten to the quick, and thou hast roused me with thy saying.’

He spake, and clad even as he was in his mantle leaped to his feet, and caught up a weight larger than the rest, a huge weight heavier far than those wherewith the Phaeacians contended in casting.  With one whirl he sent it from his stout hand, and the stone flew hurtling:  and the Phaeacians, of the long oars, those mariners renowned, crouched to earth beneath the rushing of the stone.  Beyond all the marks it flew, so lightly it sped from his hand, and Athene in the fashion of a man marked the place, and spake and hailed him: 

’Yea, even a blind man, stranger, might discern that token if he groped for it, for it is in no wise lost among the throng of the others, but is far the first; for this bout then take heart:  not one of the Phaeacians shall attain thereunto or overpass it.’

So spake she; and the steadfast goodly Odysseus rejoiced and was glad, for that he saw a true friend in the lists.  Then with a lighter heart he spake amid the Phaeacians: 

’Now reach ye this throw, young men, if ye may; and soon, methinks, will I cast another after it, as far or yet further.  And whomsoever of the rest his heart and spirit stir thereto, hither let him come and try the issue with me, in boxing or in wrestling or even in the foot race, I care not which, for ye have greatly angered me:  let any of all the Phaeacians come save Laodamas alone, for he is mine host:  who would strive with one that entreated him kindly?  Witless and worthless is the man, whoso challengeth his host that receiveth him in a strange land, he doth but maim his own estate.  But for the rest, I refuse none and hold none lightly, but I fain would know and prove them face to face.