Odyssey 1.132 · Book 1, lines 132–135
A seat apart — and a question in mind
Read the full text in our reader
πὰρ δʼ αὐτὸς κλισμὸν θέτο ποικίλον, ἔκτοθεν ἄλλων μνηστήρων, μὴ ξεῖνος ἀνιηθεὶς ὀρυμαγδῷ δείπνῳ ἁδήσειεν, ὑπερφιάλοισι μετελθών, ἠδʼ ἵνα μιν περὶ πατρὸς ἀποιχομένοιο ἔροιτο.
Beside her he set his own seat, an inlaid couch, apart from the others — from the suitors — lest the stranger, vexed by the uproar, take a distaste to the meal, having come among overbearing men, and so that he might ask him about his absent father.
Word by word
The setting
The hall is loud with Penelope's suitors at their daily feasting. Telemachus, newly protective of his disguised visitor, arranges the seating to shield the guest — and to open a private conversation.
A note on this passage
Telemachus seats himself beside the guest, deliberately away from the suitors, and the poem gives his two reasons outright: so the stranger will not be put off his food by the rowdy crowd, and so he himself can ask, quietly, about his missing father.
This is guest-welcome (ξενία) working exactly as it should — and working as cover. The rule is that you feed and settle a stranger before you press them with who they are or what they know; comfort comes first, the question second. Telemachus keeps the form, but he has already decided what he wants from it. The whole opening movement of the poem — a boy's search for news of his father — is folded into a seating arrangement.
Read the full commentary — and tap any word for its dictionary entry — in the interlinear reader.
Open Odyssey 1.132 in the full reader
Always open passages in the reader
From the Great Library
You are reading a page of the Odyssey — the whole book is free in our interlinear reader.
The Great Library Project presses the classics in their original languages, glossed word by word — free to read, always. Browse the whole library.
Also on our shelves:
Odyssey 1.132 — The Great Library Project interlinear edition · greatlibraryproject.com/book/odyssey/1.132/