In this passage from Homer's Odyssey (circa eighthseventh centuries, B.C.E.), the Phaeacians prepare to convey Odysseus home to Ithaca, along with an enormous pile of gifts they have given him in token of their friendship.

But when they had come down to the sea, and where the ship was, the proud escorts promptly took over the gifts, and stowed them away in the hollow hull, and all the food and the drink, then spread out a coverlet for Odysseus, and linens, out on the deck, at the stern of the ship's hull, so that he could sleep there undisturbed, and he himself went aboard and lay down silently. They sat down each in his place at the oarlocks in order, and slipped the cable free from its hole in the stone post.

They bent to their rowing, and with...