A king’s gifts, given properly. Alcinous loaded the magic ship before the crossing — armor, tripods, gold cups, the kind of treasure a man can rebuild a household around. Odysseus woke on Ithaca’s black-sand beach with the gifts scattered around him, glinting in weak sun, and could not recognize where he was. The land was veiled in mist. The gifts were the only solid things. They tell you something about what xenia looks like when it works: the guest leaves richer than he came, with the wealth of a kingdom on the sand around him, and the host loses nothing but pays a real price anyway. The gifts also become his cover. He hides them in Athena’s cave. The treasure of a king, stowed in the dark, while the king himself walks home in rags.
The Phaeacian Gifts
Armor, bronze tripods, gold cups. Alcinous's farewell, scattered in the black sand around a sleeping man who doesn't yet know he's home.