The Odyssey — книга для чтения (C2)

Of all the many hosts measured by this moral standard, the Phaeacians stand out as the most generous, not only in their regal entertainment of Odysseus but also in their speedy conveyance of the hero to his own home, a service they provide for all wayfarers who reach their shore. And now they are punished by the gods for precisely this reason, since their magnanimity has made Poseidon feel that his honor —the touchy sensitivity to public opinion that in Achilles brought ten thousand woes on the Achaeans, and drove Ajax to suicide and fueled his sullenness in the underworld —has been dealt an intolerable blow. The offenders must be punished, even if their punishment displays utter indifference to the only code of moral conduct that obtains in the insecure world of the Odyssey. Faced with Poseidon’s rage against the Phaeacians, Zeus the protector of strangers enthusiastically joins his powerful brother in his denunciation. Not only does he suggest the refinement of turning the ship to stone; he also approves of Poseidon’s intention to cut the Phaeacians off from the sea forever by piling a huge mountain around the city.