Odyssey 1.255 · Book 1, lines 255–259
If only he would stand in the doorway, armed
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εἰ γὰρ νῦν ἐλθὼν δόμου ἐν πρώτῃσι θύρῃσι 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—
If only now he would come and stand in the first doorway of the house, having a helmet and a shield and two spears — such a man as I first saw him, in our house, drinking and taking his delight, on his way back from Ephyra, from Ilus, son of Mermerus —
Word by word
The setting
Athena's wish, continuing: she imagines Odysseus back and armed at his own front door — and then remembers the man himself, as she once saw him passing through on a grim errand.
A note on this passage
The wish takes a shape: Odysseus, come home, standing armed in his own front doorway — helmet, shield, two spears, the whole warrior in three objects. Then Athena's memory slides back to the man she actually knew, a guest once at ease in ‘our house,’ drinking, on his way home from an errand in Ephyra.
The undercurrent is the doorway itself. A threshold is where the suitors' whole crime happens — men who came through it as guests and stayed as invaders. Athena sets the returning master exactly there, at the door they violated, and arms him. The peaceful memory that follows (a guest drinking, welcomed) is the picture of what a threshold is supposed to mean — quietly measuring how far this house has fallen from it.
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