Odyssey 1.139 · Book 1, lines 139–143
The loaded table — bread, meats, wine
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σῖτον δʼ αἰδοίη ταμίη παρέθηκε φέρουσα, εἴδατα πόλλʼ ἐπιθεῖσα, χαριζομένη παρεόντων· δαιτρὸς δὲ κρειῶν πίνακας παρέθηκεν ἀείρας παντοίων, παρὰ δέ σφι τίθει χρύσεια κύπελλα· κῆρυξ δʼ αὐτοῖσιν θάμʼ ἐπῴχετο οἰνοχοεύων.
A revered housekeeper brought bread and set it before them, adding dainties of many kinds, giving freely of her store; and a carver lifted platters of meats of every kind and set them before them, and placed golden cups beside them; and a herald went to and fro, often pouring them wine.
Word by word
The setting
The guest-welcome reaches its climax: the loaded table. By the code, only after the stranger is fed may the host ask his name and errand — the courtesy Telemachus is waiting to observe.
A note on this passage
The spread is completed. A grave housekeeper lays out bread and a generous range of side dishes; a carver brings platters of every kind of meat; golden cups are set out; a herald keeps the wine coming. This is the full welcome-meal, every station manned.
The type-scene has a rule folded into it: you feed a stranger completely before you ask who he is. That courtesy is the undercurrent here — the household treats the unknown visitor as owed food first and questions later. And it lands in the one house where the code has been turned inside out. The suitors are anti-guests: men who take the welcome-meal every day and owe nothing back. The same bread and wine measure both the honor done a true guest and the theft committed by false ones.
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