When Odysseus arrives back in Ithaka in Odyssey 13, he encounters Athene in the shape of young shepherd. After Odysseus lies to her about his identity, Athene reacts with a smile and another transformation: ὣς φάτο, μείδησεν δὲ θεὰ γλαυκῶπις Ἀθήνη, χειρί τέ μιν κατέρεξε· δέμας δ' ἤϊκτο γυναικὶ καλῇ τε μεγάλῃ τε καὶ ἀγλαὰ ἔργα ἰδυίῃ· So he spoke, and the goddess gray-eyed Athene smiled, and she stroke him with her hand. And she took on the shape of a woman beautiful and tall and skilled in beautiful handiworks, and speaking to him she addressed him in winged words. Some scholars have interpreted this transformation as the goddess revealing herself to the hero in her true form (e.g., Stanford 1948, ad 13.289; Heubeck 1988-1992, ad 13.288), but as Pucci argues, it is unlikely that Odysseus sees the goddess as she really is (Pucci 1986:7-28). The diction of the passage makes clear that Athene’s appearance “in the shape of a beautiful woman” is as much a disguise as the others she adopts elsewhere: as the poet tells us, “she took on (ἤϊκτο) the shape of a woman.” The formulaic language to describe the goddess’ reaction and transformation has both erotic and maternal connotations. The formula “and she/he stroked him/her with her/his hand” appears seven times in Homeric epic, always to describe intimate moments between mother and child or between lovers. In the Iliad, the phrase is mostly used to described mother and child (1.361, 5.372, 23.127) and once of husband and wife (6.484-5). In the Odyssey the phrase occurs two other times: Menelaos smiles and strokes Telemachos in a fatherly manner (4.610), and there is perhaps a maternal aspect to Athene’s concern for Odysseus, but the encounter is not without sexual undercurrents, which are also present in the only other Odyssean instance of the phrase, which involves Kalypso smiling and stroking Odysseus (5.180-1). When Athene strokes Odysseus, the erotic tenor of her gesture is made evident in both her physical transformation and the conversation that follows, which centers on the like-mindedness of the goddess and the hero, a quality Odysseus praises as the basis of a good marriage (Odyssey 6.183). Athene chooses an appearance that is particularly appropriate to this moment of intimacy between goddess and her mortal protégé: the shape of a seductive woman, beautiful and skilled at handiworks, or in short and as the Greek gunê also denotes, a perfect wife endowed with the most desirable qualities. The encounter between goddess and hero in Odyssey 8 is thus replete with motifs—an encounter with a beautiful female divinity in the countryside, a shrine of the nymphs—usually associated with stories of love between goddesses and men, and Odysseus in this scene is depicted as the notional lover of the goddess, or as a nympholept (numpholeptos). References Heubeck, A. et al. 1998-1992. A Commentary on Homer’s Odyssey. Volume 2. Books 9-16. Oxford. Pache, C. 2011. ‘A Moment’s Ornament’: The Poetics of Nympholepsy in Ancient Greece. Oxford. Pucci, P. 1986. “Les figures de la Mêtis dans l’Odyssée.” Mètis 1:7-28. Stanford, W.B. 1948. Homer. Odyssey XIII-XXIV. Edited with Introduction and Commentary. London.