τὴν δʼ αὖ Τηλέμαχος πεπνυμένος ἀντίον ηὔδα·230
ξεῖνʼ, ἐπεὶ ἂρ δὴ ταῦτά μʼ ἀνείρεαι ἠδὲ μεταλλᾷς,
μέλλεν μέν ποτε οἶκος ὅδʼ ἀφνειὸς καὶ ἀμύμων
ἔμμεναι, ὄφρʼ ἔτι κεῖνος ἀνὴρ ἐπιδήμιος ἦεν·
νῦν δʼ ἑτέρως ἐβόλοντο θεοὶ κακὰ μητιόωντες,
οἳ κεῖνον μὲν ἄιστον ἐποίησαν περὶ πάντων235
ἀνθρώπων, ἐπεὶ οὔ κε θανόντι περ ὧδʼ ἀκαχοίμην,
εἰ μετὰ οἷς ἑτάροισι δάμη Τρώων ἐνὶ δήμῳ,
ἠὲ φίλων ἐν χερσίν, ἐπεὶ πόλεμον τολύπευσεν.
τῷ κέν οἱ τύμβον μὲν ἐποίησαν Παναχαιοί,
ἠδέ κε καὶ ᾧ παιδὶ μέγα κλέος ἤρατʼ ὀπίσσω.240
νῦν δέ μιν ἀκλειῶς ἅρπυιαι ἀνηρείψαντο·
οἴχετʼ ἄιστος ἄπυστος, ἐμοὶ δʼ ὀδύνας τε γόους τε
κάλλιπεν. οὐδέ τι κεῖνον ὀδυρόμενος στεναχίζω
οἶον, ἐπεί νύ μοι ἄλλα θεοὶ κακὰ κήδεʼ ἔτευξαν.
ὅσσοι γὰρ νήσοισιν ἐπικρατέουσιν ἄριστοι,245
Δουλιχίῳ τε Σάμῃ τε καὶ ὑλήεντι Ζακύνθῳ,
ἠδʼ ὅσσοι κραναὴν Ἰθάκην κάτα κοιρανέουσιν,
τόσσοι μητέρʼ ἐμὴν μνῶνται, τρύχουσι δὲ οἶκον.
ἡ δʼ οὔτʼ ἀρνεῖται στυγερὸν γάμον οὔτε τελευτὴν
ποιῆσαι δύναται· τοὶ δὲ φθινύθουσιν ἔδοντες250
οἶκον ἐμόν· τάχα δή με διαρραίσουσι καὶ αὐτόν.
τὸν δʼ ἐπαλαστήσασα προσηύδα Παλλὰς Ἀθήνη·
ὢ πόποι, ἦ δὴ πολλὸν ἀποιχομένου Ὀδυσῆος
δεύῃ, ὅ κε μνηστῆρσιν ἀναιδέσι χεῖρας ἐφείη.
εἰ γὰρ νῦν ἐλθὼν δόμου ἐν πρώτῃσι θύρῃσι255
σταίη, ἔχων πήληκα καὶ ἀσπίδα καὶ δύο δοῦρε,
τοῖος ἐὼν οἷόν μιν ἐγὼ τὰ πρῶτʼ ἐνόησα
οἴκῳ ἐν ἡμετέρῳ πίνοντά τε τερπόμενόν τε,
ἐξ Ἐφύρης ἀνιόντα παρʼ Ἴλου Μερμερίδαο—
ᾤχετο γὰρ καὶ κεῖσε θοῆς ἐπὶ νηὸς Ὀδυσσεὺς260
φάρμακον ἀνδροφόνον διζήμενος, ὄφρα οἱ εἴη
ἰοὺς χρίεσθαι χαλκήρεας· ἀλλʼ ὁ μὲν οὔ οἱ
δῶκεν, ἐπεί ῥα θεοὺς νεμεσίζετο αἰὲν ἐόντας,
ἀλλὰ πατήρ οἱ δῶκεν ἐμός· φιλέεσκε γὰρ αἰνῶς—
τοῖος ἐὼν μνηστῆρσιν ὁμιλήσειεν Ὀδυσσεύς·265
πάντες κʼ ὠκύμοροί τε γενοίατο πικρόγαμοί τε.
ἀλλʼ ἦ τοι μὲν ταῦτα θεῶν ἐν γούνασι κεῖται,
ἤ κεν νοστήσας ἀποτίσεται, ἦε καὶ οὐκί,
οἷσιν ἐνὶ μεγάροισι· σὲ δὲ φράζεσθαι ἄνωγα,
ὅππως κε μνηστῆρας ἀπώσεαι ἐκ μεγάροιο.270
εἰ δʼ ἄγε νῦν ξυνίει καὶ ἐμῶν ἐμπάζεο μύθων·
αὔριον εἰς ἀγορὴν καλέσας ἥρωας Ἀχαιοὺς
μῦθον πέφραδε πᾶσι, θεοὶ δʼ ἐπὶ μάρτυροι ἔστων.
μνηστῆρας μὲν ἐπὶ σφέτερα σκίδνασθαι ἄνωχθι,
μητέρα δʼ, εἴ οἱ θυμὸς ἐφορμᾶται γαμέεσθαι,275
ἂψ ἴτω ἐς μέγαρον πατρὸς μέγα δυναμένοιο·
οἱ δὲ γάμον τεύξουσι καὶ ἀρτυνέουσιν ἔεδνα
πολλὰ μάλʼ, ὅσσα ἔοικε φίλης ἐπὶ παιδὸς ἕπεσθαι.
σοὶ δʼ αὐτῷ πυκινῶς ὑποθήσομαι, αἴ κε πίθηαι·
notes
Telemachus continues his lament: If only Odysseus were here, those suitors would be sorry, but now the gods have rendered him ἄιστος ἄπυστος (242). For a Greek hero, to be unknown is to be as good as dead.
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Only kleos offers a hedge against the pathetic squeaking oblivion of the ψυχαὶ that Odysseus will encounter in the underworld (11.24–37). He himself will voice this fear of an anonymous death when Poseidon smashes the boat he has made with Calypso’s help in Book 5:
νῦν μοι σῶς αἰπὺς ὄλεθρος.
τρὶς μάκαρες Δαναοὶ καὶ τετράκις, οἳ τότ᾽ ὄλοντο
Τροίῃ ἐν εὐρείῃ χάριν Ἀτρεΐδῃσι φέροντες.
ὡς δὴ ἐγώ γ᾽ ὄφελον θανέειν καὶ πότμον ἐπισπεῖν
ἤματι τῷ ὅτε μοι πλεῖστοι χαλκήρεα δοῦρα
Τρῶες ἐπέρριψαν περὶ Πηλεΐωνι θανόντι.
τῷ κ᾽ ἔλαχον κτερέων, καί μευ κλέος ἦγον Ἀχαιοί:
νῦν δέ λευγαλέῳ θανάτῳ εἵμαρτο ἁλῶναι.
Now my sudden death is assured.
Three- and four-times blessed are those who perished
in broad Troy, bringing favor to the sons of Atreus.
As I wish I had died and met my fate
on that day when the greatest number of Trojans
threw their bronze-tipped spears all around the dead Achilles.
Then I would have had my rites, and the Achaeans given me glory.
Now I am fated to be taken by a painful death.
Odyssey 5.305–12
Virgil revisits these verses when his hero Aeneas faces a watery death off the coast of North Africa:
O terque quaterque beati,
quis ante ora patrum Troiae sub moenibus altis
contigit oppetere! O Danaum fortissime gentis
Tydide! Mene Iliacis occumbere campis
non potuisse, tuaque animam hanc effundere dextra,
saevus ubi Aeacidae telo iacet Hector, ubi ingens
Sarpedon, ubi tot Simois correpta sub undis
scuta virum galeasque et fortia corpora volvit?
Oh three- and four-times blessed,
those whose lot it was, under Troy’s high walls,
to meet their death before their parents’ eyes! Oh Diomedes,
bravest of the Danaans, why could I not go down
in Troy’s fields and breathe my last breath by your right hand,
where Hector lies, felled by savage Achilles’s spear, where huge
Sarpedon lies, and so many shields and helmets and strong bodies
of men the waves of Simois snatched beneath its waves?
Aeneid 1.94–101
The Roman poet, always a subtle student of Homer, marks by this allusion an important difference between the two heroes. Aeneas wants to die in front of people who love him, and his imagination extends to his fallen comrades. Odysseus laments the chance to die in battle, surrounded by both his fellow Greeks and by Trojans, all of whom can attest to his death and perhaps give him a hero’s burial. He foresees a “painful death” (312), but what haunts him is the specter of an anonymous death, not the loss of his family’s love.
We touch here on a central paradox that will inform the entire Odyssey. As a hero, Odysseus must always work to earn kleos, the glory that will live on after his death. Yet to win the ultimate prize, as the poem defines it, the defeat of the suitors and restoration of his kingdom, he will have to remain anonymous for as long as he can in every place he comes to, a stranger who hides his heroic identity to manipulate others. The tension between these two personae supplies much of the energy that animates the story (ref. to introduction here?).
Telemachus has begun to stir from his funk under the subtle prodding of his guest, but at this point, knowing what we do about the gods’ plans for him, we begin to hear a persistent strain of self-pity in his laments about the suitors and his father’s absence. Athena, for her part, is out of patience. Like Telemachus, she wishes she could see Odysseus standing in the doorway, ready to punish the suitors. Her tone, however, differs from his. Her image of his father on the threshold is meant to goad Telemachus to emulate Odysseus. He may be alive, he may be dead, but in any event, it is time for his son to get moving. Athena has established her credibility as an advisor and proceeds to the main business of her mission: Telemachus must do what he can to bring the suitors’ party to an end, by sending them home if he can and sending Penelope to her father, who can take charge of finding her a new husband. Whether that man would then take over the kingship in Ithaka, however, is not entirely clear.
The question of succession in Ithaka is a vexed one, over which scholars have long puzzled. Homer does not seem eager to offer any definitive answer to the question of who would fill Odysseus’s role as king if he were to die. Laertes, as we have seen, is not able to step in for his son. The suitors seem to think that whoever marries Penelope will inherit the kingship in Ithaka. At the same time, they apparently see Telemachus as the heir to his father’s position and plan to murder him (4.663–72). This confusion is troubling to us, because we want issues like this to be clear, so we can keep our bearings. But for storytellers like Homer, clarity is not always desirable. Wondering about questions like this one keeps us engaged in the story, always the poet’s priority, and the conflicting possibilities offer him the chance to ramp up the energy. The bigger the prize, the more dangerous the suitors will be when Odysseus returns. Capturing both Penelope and the kingship is more alluring than one or the other. Telemachus’s fitness to succeed his father is more crucial if he is the presumptive heir to the kingship. Telemachus is in any event going to be the primary focus of the first four Books of the poem, because his story forms a subplot that establishes its own rhythm and shape, against which his father’s nostos is articulated, and because we see Odysseus himself gradually emerge through his son’s search for knowledge of his father. Getting him on his way is the goal of the next part of Athena’s mission.
Further Reading
Van Nortwick, T. 2008. The Unknown Odysseus: Alternate Worlds in Homer’s Odyssey, 62–64. Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press.
237 εἰ … δάμη: the protasis of the past unreal condition.
237 δάμη: unaugmented 3rd sing. aor. pass. indic. > δαμάζω.
237 οἷς: possessive adj.
238 τολύπευσεν: the verb is used of spinning wool (LSJ τολυπεύω). The phrase “wind up” is still used to mean “finish.”
239 τῷ: “then,” “in that case” (LSJ τῷ). The adverb stands in for the protasis of a past unreal condition: “In that case (i.e., if he had died at Troy) …”
239 κέν … ἐποίησαν: the apodosis of the past unreal condition. The apodosis is in two parts, connected by μὲν and ἠδέ, each with a κε(ν) and an aorist verb.
239 οἱ: dative of interest, referring to Odysseus.
240 ᾧ: possessive adj.
240 ἤρατ(ο): 3rd sing. aor. mid. pass. indic. > ἄρνυμαι.
240 ὀπίσσω: LSJ ὀπίσω II.
241 ἀκλειῶς: “so that no word has come of him,” “without a trace.” The adverb can mean “ingloriously,” but here probably has a more neutral meaning.
242 οἴχετ(ο): “has gone,” pres., with perfect force (LSJ οἴχομαι I).
243 κάλλιπεν: = κατέλιπεν, 3rd sing. aor. act. indic. > καταλείπω. An example of apocope and assimilation (Smyth 75D).
246 Δουλιχίῳ τε Σάμῃ τε καὶ ὑλήεντι Ζακύνθῳ: the datives, in apposition to νήσοισιν, follow the verb ἐπικρατέουσιν. Same and Zakynthos are both islands in the vicinity of Ithaka. The location of Doulichion is unknown (see Merry-Riddell-Monro).
250 δύναται: according to LSJ (δύναμαι I.2), the verb expresses a “moral possibility” or, when negated (ὄυτε, line 249) as in this case, a moral impossibility: “doesn’t dare …”
252 ἐπαλαστήσασα: > ἐπαλαστέω, the verb means either “to be full of wrath at” (LSJ), “to find things intolerable” (Cunliffe), or “to be indignant at” (Autenrieth). Merry-Riddell-Monro renders the participle “with a burst of passion.” The aorist participle is ingressive (Smyth 1924), and indicates action occurring at exactly the same time as the action of the main verb (Monro 77).
253 πολλὸν: adverbial (LSJ πολύς III.a)
254 δεύῃ: 2nd sing. pres. mid. indic. > δεύω (δεύομαι). Homer uses the active form only in the aorist, and otherwise uses the middle (deponent) form (LSJ δεύω B.II). The verb takes a genitive (Smyth 1398).
254 ὅ κε … ἐφείη: a relative clause of purpose (Smyth 2554c), but the optative with κε indicates that the action of the clause is a matter of supposition (i.e., it’s what the speaker supposes will happen under the circumstances), similar to the apodosis of a future less vivid condition (Monro 303.1.b).
254 ἐφείη: 3rd sing. aor. act. opt. > ἐφίημι. For the construction in this passage with the accusative and dative, see LSJ ἐφίημι I.3.
255 εἰ γὰρ … / σταίη: this stands alone as an optative of wish, but can also be read with the potential optative in line 266 (κ᾽ … γενοίατο) to form a future less vivid condition. As Smyth points out, the future less vivid arose from the combination of the optative of wish and the potential optative (Smyth 2330). See also the note on line 163.
257 τοῖος ἐὼν οἷόν: “being such as,” “such as.”
261 ὄφρα οἱ εἴη /… χρίεσθαι: purpose clause. οἱ is a dative of possession. Understand φάρμακον as the subject of εἴη. χρίεσθαι is an infinitive of purpose.
263 νεμεσίζετο: unaugmented impf. For the meaning of the verb in this line, see LSJ νεμεσίζομαι II. There is an implication what poisoned arrows, not mentioned elsewhere in Homer, are illicit weapons.
264 φιλέεσκε: unaugmented iterative impf. (Smyth 495).
264 αἰνῶς: see LSJ αἰνός II.
265 ὁμιλήσειεν: resuming the wish introduced in line 255. For the meaning of the verb here, see LSJ ὁμιλέωII.
266 κ᾽ … γενοίατο: potential optative or apodosis of a future less vivid condition. See note on line 255.
267 θεῶν ἐν γούνασι: the origin of the expression “in the lap of the gods,” though literally “on the knees of the gods.”
268 ἤ …, ἦε καὶ οὐκί: “whether or not” in an indirect alternative question (Smyth 2675e).
268 κεν … ἀποτίσεται: anticipatory subj., translated as a future indicative (Smyth 1810). ἀποτίσεται is a short-vowel subjunctive.
269 φράζεσθαι: for the meaning of the middle form of the verb in Epic, see LSJ φράζω II.1.
269 ἄνωγα: the verb means “command” when spoken by a superior to an inferior, and “advise” or “urge” when spoken among equals or by an inferior to a superior. Here, the latter is more appropriate.
270 κε … ἀπώσεαι: 2nd sing. fut. mid. indic. or 2nd sing. aor. mid. short-vowel subj. > ἀποθέω. Monro (326.4) takes it as a future with a “conditional or limiting force,” that is, “might” or “may” rather than “will” (Smyth 1793). The subjunctive would be anticipatory (Smyth 1810), which is the construction used in lines 295–96.
271 εἰ δ᾽ ἄγε: an exclamation (LSJ ἄγε, Smyth 2348).
271 ξυνίει: imperat. > ξυνίημι (LSJ συνίημι II.1).
271 ἐμπάζεο: imperat. > ἐμπάζομαι. The verb takes a genitive.
273 πέφραδε: aor. imperat. > φράζω.
273 ἐπὶ: adverbial (LSJ ἐπί E.I). Some manuscripts read ἐπιμάρτυροι (LSJ ἐπιμάρτυρος)
273 ἔστων: 3rd pl. imperat. > εἰμί.
274 σφέτερα: understand δώματα.
274 ἄνωχθι: imperat. > ἄνωγα.
275 μητέρα: the accusative, parallel to μνηστῆρας, leads us to expect a continuation of the indirect command, but in line 276 the construction shifts to a direct command (ἴτω). An example of anacolouthon (Smyth 3004).
275 οἱ: dative of possession.
276 πατρὸς: Penelope’s father was Ikarios, the brother of Tyndarius, who was the father of Helen and Clytemnestra (Smith Dictionary Icarius).
276 μέγα δυναμένοιο: see LSJ δύναμαι I.1. μέγα is adverbial.
277 οἱ … ἔεδνα: οἱ refers either to the suitors or, as Stanford and Merry-Riddell-Monro prefer, to Penelope’s kinsfolk (οἱ ἀμφὶ τὸν πατέρα, in the words of the 12th century Byzantine scholar Eusthathius). The evidence for the latter includes (1) the fact that, in the previous line, Athena/Mentes tells Telemachus to send Penelope home to her father, which is where the wedding would be prepared, and (2) it is the responsibility of the bride’s family, not the prospective husband, to arrange the wedding. The remaining difficulty is that ἔεδνα (LSJ ἕδνον) commonly refers to the “bride-price” given by the successful suitor to the father of the bride. But, as LSJ suggests, the meaning of the word may be flexible and mean, generally, “wedding gifts.”
278 φίλης ἐπὶ παιδὸς: Merry-Riddell-Monro suggests that the preposition with the genitive can mean “along with” or “accompanying.” The other possibility is that ἐπὶ is adverbial (LSJ ἐπί E.I), and the genitive is a genitive of price (“as the price of a dear daughter,” Stanford). The price paid is usually placed in the genitive (Smyth 1372), but there are rare examples of the genitive used of the thing being paid for (Smyth 1373a).
279 ὑποθήσομαι, αἴ κε πίθηαι: a future more vivid condition, with αἴ κε in place of ἐάν.
279 πίθηαι: 2nd sing. aor. mid./pass. subj. > πείθω.