Odyssey 1.109 · Book 1, lines 109–112
The feast machine
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κήρυκες δʼ αὐτοῖσι καὶ ὀτρηροὶ θεράποντες οἱ μὲν οἶνον ἔμισγον ἐνὶ κρητῆρσι καὶ ὕδωρ, οἱ δʼ αὖτε σπόγγοισι πολυτρήτοισι τραπέζας νίζον καὶ πρότιθεν, τοὶ δὲ κρέα πολλὰ δατεῦντο.
And heralds and busy serving-men attended them: some were mixing wine and water in the mixing-bowls, others in turn were wiping the tables with porous sponges and setting them out, and still others were carving meat in plenty.
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The setting
Around the gaming suitors, the household staff keeps the perpetual banquet running: heralds mixing wine and water, serving-men wiping the tables and setting them out, carvers portioning the meat.
A note on this passage
Four lines of pure housekeeping, and it is done beautifully: wine cut with water in the great bowls, tables sponged and set out, meat divided in plenty. Every gesture belongs to the correct running of a great house's feast — this is what a well-staffed banquet is supposed to look like.
That is the sting. The form of the feast is perfect and its substance is theft: the etiquette of hospitality performed daily for men no one invited, at the expense of a master who cannot object because he is not there. δατεῦντο — they 'divided' the meat — is the old feast-word of fair shares, the same root as δαίς: the machinery of fair division running smoothly inside an enormous unfairness. The servants, note, are blameless and busy; the house still works. What has failed is only who it works for.
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