Odysseus: Metis Is His Most Important Quality

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the snowflakes on a winter’s day,
Then could no other mortal man rival Odysseus. (III, ll. 210-220).

In addition, Agamemnon expresses his anger towards Odysseus’ deceptive nature during a battle by addressing Odysseus as “you crafty-minded Odysseus, excellent in civil tricks” (IV, ll. 339).
Odysseus’ polymetis can be observed in Homer’s illustration of Odysseus’ aptitude for carpentry and shipbuilding in the Odyssey. His woodworking skills are portrayed when he builds a raft to leave Kaypso’s island after seven years of captivity. Homer describes this boat as not a mere primitive raft, but rather to product of a skilled, experienced builder when he compares Odysseus to a “man well-skilled in carpentry”:

Showing him in that place her stand of timber
the loveliest of nymphs took her way home.
Now the man fell to chopping; when he paused
twenty tall trees were down. He lopped the branches,
split the trunks, and trimmed his puncheons true.
Meanwhile Kalypso brought him ...

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