All 33 Uses of
cunning
in
The Odyssey
- Haven't you heard
what glory Prince Orestes won throughout the world
when he killed that cunning, murderous Aegisthus,
who'd killed his famous father?†p. 87.3cunning = good at achieving goals through cleverness and deception
- It's not the suitors here who deserve the blame,
it's your own dear mother, the matchless queen of cunning.†p. 96.2
- But you, brave and adept from this day on—
Odysseus' cunning has hardly given out in you—
there's every hope that you will reach your goal.†p. 102.3
- And no one there could hope to rival Odysseus,
not for sheer cunning—
at every twist of strategy he excelled us all.†p. 111.4
- Orestes took revenge,
he killed that cunning, murderous Aegisthus,
who'd killed his famous father.†p. 113.8 *
- Myself, I'd rather
sail through years of trouble and labor home
and see that blessed day, than hurry home
to die at my own hearth like Agamemnon,
killed by Aegisthus' cunning—by his own wife.†p. 115.1
- But the eighth year ushered in his ruin, Prince Orestes
home from Athens, yes, he cut him down, that cunning,
murderous Aegisthus, who'd killed his famous father.†p. 117.4
- But while I roamed those lands, amassing a fortune,
a stranger killed my brother, blind to the danger, duped blind—
thanks to the cunning of his cursed, murderous queen!†p. 127.5
- So cunning the drugs that Zeus's daughter plied,
potent gifts from Polydamna the wife of Thon,
a woman of Egypt, land where the teeming soil
bears the richest yield of herbs in all the world:
many health itself when mixed in the wine,
and many deadly poison.†p. 131.7
- Then down he lay and slept, but we with a battle-cry,
we rushed him, flung our arms around him—he'd lost nothing,
the old rascal, none of his cunning quick techniques!†p. 138.9
- But a watchman saw him too—from a lookout high above—
a spy that cunning Aegisthus stationed there,
luring the man with two gold bars in payment.†p. 141.2
- Her mind in torment, wheeling
like some lion at bay, dreading gangs of hunters
closing their cunning ring around him for the finish.†p. 149.8
- And dogs of gold and silver were stationed either side,
forged by the god of fire with all his cunning craft
to keep watch on generous King Alcinous' palace,
his immortal guard-dogs, ageless, all their days.†p. 182.6
- Once he'd spun that cunning trap around his bed
he feigned a trip to the well-built town of Lemnos,
dearest to him by far of all the towns on earth.†p. 200.6
- So he pressed
and her heart raced with joy to sleep with War
and off they went to bed and down they lay—
and down around them came those cunning chains
of the crafty god of fire, showering down now
till the couple could not move a limb or lift a finger—
then they knew at last: there was no way out, not now.†p. 201.1
- No, they'll soon tire of bedding down together,
but then my cunning chains will bind them fast
till our Father pays my bride-gifts back in full,
all I handed him for that shameless bitch his daughter,
irresistible beauty—all unbridled too!†p. 201.7
- The immortals, givers of all good things, stood at the gates,
and uncontrollable laughter burst from the happy gods
when they saw the god of fire's subtle, cunning work.†p. 201.9
- Sing of the wooden horse
Epeus built with Athena's help, the cunning trap that
good Odysseus brought one day to the heights of Troy,
filled with fighting men who laid the city waste.†p. 207.4
- They lumbered off, but laughter filled my heart
to think how nobody's name—my great cunning stroke—
had duped them one and all.†p. 224.6
- My wits kept weaving, weaving cunning schemes—
life at stake, monstrous death staring us in the face—
till this plan struck my mind as best.†p. 224.9
- We must think of a plan at once,
some cunning stroke.†p. 236.5
- What greater feat can that cunning head contrive?†
p. 265.0
- He stood on native ground at last
and he replied with a winging word to Pallas,
not with a word of truth—he choked it back,
always invoking the cunning in his heart:
"Ithaca ...yes, I seem to have heard of Ithaca,
even on Crete's broad island far across the sea,
and now I've reached it myself, with all this loot,
but I left behind an equal measure for my children.†p. 294.9
- Here among mortal men
you're far the best at tactics, spinning yarns,
and I am famous among the gods for wisdom,
cunning wiles, too.†p. 296.3
- The maids of Odysseus, steady man, took turns
to keep the fires up, but the king himself,
dear to the gods and cunning to the core,
gave them orders brusquely: "Maids of Odysseus,
your master gone so long—quick now, off you go
to the room where your queen and mistress waits.†p. 385.9
- But you held fast—
Nobody but your cunning pulled you through
the monster's cave you thought would be your death.†p. 411.2
- "Others are quick to trust a weaker comrade,
some poor mortal, far less cunning than I.
But I am a goddess, look, the very one who
guards you in all your trials to the last.†p. 411.9
- And now, once
they'd tipped libations out and drunk their fill,
the king of craft, Odysseus, said with all his cunning,
"Listen to me, you lords who court the noble queen.†p. 433.2
- Horror swept through the suitors, faces blanching white,
and Zeus cracked the sky with a bolt, his blazing sign,
and the great man who had-borne so much rejoiced at last
that the son of cunning Cronus flung that omen down for him.†p. 437.9
- Off they ran to the storeroom, unseen by him insideMelanthius, rummaging after arms, deep in a dark recess
as the two men took their stand, either side of the doorposts,
poised till the goatherd tried to cross the doorsill ...
one hand clutching a crested helmet, the other
an ample old buckler blotched with mildew,
the shield Laertes bore as a young soldier once
but there it lay for ages, seams on the handstraps split—
Quick, they rushed him, seized him, haled him back by the hair,
flung him down on the floor, writhing with terror, bound him
hand and foot with a chafing cord, wrenched his limbs
back, back till the joints locked tight—
just as Laertes' cunning son comma†p. 445.5
- But don't fault me, angry with me now because I failed,
at the first glimpse, to greet you, hold you, so ...
In my heart of hearts I always cringed with fear
some fraud might come, beguile me with his talk;
the world is full of the sort,
cunning ones who plot their own dark ends.†p. 462.7
- He told her of Circe's cunning magic wiles
and how he voyaged down in his long benched ship
to the moldering House of Death, to consult Tiresias,
ghostly seer of Thebes, and he saw old comrades there
and he saw his mother, who bore and reared him as a child.†p. 466.1
- But once the will of thundering Zeus had roused his blood,
he and Telemachus bore the burnished weapons off
and stowed them deep in a storeroom, shot the bolts
and he—the soul of cunning—told his wife to set
the great bow and the gleaming iron axes out
before the suitors—all of us doomed now—
to test our skill and bring our slaughter on ...
Not one of us had the strength to string that powerful weapon,
all of us fell far short of what it took.†p. 473.7
Definitions:
-
(1)
(cunning as in: a cunning thief) being good at achieving goals through cleverness -- and typically through deception as well (tricking others)
-
(2)
(meaning too rare to warrant focus) meaning too rare to warrant focus:
At one time, cunning was also used as a synonym for cute.