Odyssey 1.126 · Book 1, lines 126–131
The guest brought in, the spear in the rack
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οἱ δʼ ὅτε δή ῥʼ ἔντοσθεν ἔσαν δόμου ὑψηλοῖο, ἔγχος μέν ῥʼ ἔστησε φέρων πρὸς κίονα μακρὴν δουροδόκης ἔντοσθεν ἐυξόου, ἔνθα περ ἄλλα ἔγχεʼ Ὀδυσσῆος ταλασίφρονος ἵστατο πολλά, αὐτὴν δʼ ἐς θρόνον εἷσεν ἄγων, ὑπὸ λῖτα πετάσσας, καλὸν δαιδάλεον· ὑπὸ δὲ θρῆνυς ποσὶν ἦεν.
But when they were within the lofty house, he set the spear he was carrying against a tall pillar, within the well-polished spear-stand, where other spears of stout-hearted Odysseus stood in plenty; and he led her to a chair and seated her, spreading a linen cloth beneath — a fine chair, richly wrought — and beneath there was a footstool for her feet.
Word by word
The setting
Athena has come to Ithaca disguised as Mentes, a family friend; Telemachus alone rose to greet her at the gate. Now he brings the guest indoors, into the hall crowded with his mother's suitors.
A note on this passage
The guest is brought inside and the household machine starts up. Telemachus stands the spear in the rack, seats the stranger on a good chair with a cloth spread over it and a footstool beneath. Every gesture is correct welcome, performed by a young man who knows the form and is doing it properly.
The undercurrent is where the spear goes: into the stand where the spears of Odysseus already stand, 'many,' untouched. The fixed epithet ταλασίφρων — 'stout-hearted,' 'much-enduring' — rests on a man who is not here to endure anything, whose weapons gather in a rack while other men eat his house. Telemachus lodges a visitor's spear among a missing father's arms, and the poem lets the idle armory speak the absence.
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Odyssey 1.126 — The Great Library Project interlinear edition · greatlibraryproject.com/book/odyssey/1.126/