Odyssey 1.260 · Book 1, lines 260–264
The errand at Ephyra — a guest-friend's poison
Read the full text in our reader
ᾤχετο γὰρ καὶ κεῖσε θοῆς ἐπὶ νηὸς Ὀδυσσεὺς φάρμακον ἀνδροφόνον διζήμενος, ὄφρα οἱ εἴη ἰοὺς χρίεσθαι χαλκήρεας;· ἀλλʼ ὁ μὲν οὔ οἱ δῶκεν, ἐπεί ῥα θεοὺς νεμεσίζετο αἰὲν ἐόντας, ἀλλὰ πατήρ οἱ δῶκεν ἐμός;· φιλέεσκε γὰρ αἰνῶς—
For Odysseus had gone there too, on a swift ship, seeking a man-slaying drug, so that he might have it to anoint his bronze-tipped arrows; but that man would not give it to him, since he stood in awe of the gods who are forever — yet my own father gave it to him, for he loved him dearly —
Word by word
The setting
Athena, as Mentes, explains the memory: Odysseus had sailed to Ephyra seeking arrow-poison. Ilus, fearing the gods, refused him; the speaker's own father supplied it, out of love. A parenthesis on an old friendship.
A note on this passage
A memory folded into the wish. As ‘Mentes,’ Athena recalls the young Odysseus who once sailed to Ephyra after arrow-poison. Ilus, fearing the gods' displeasure, refused him the man-slaying drug; the speaker's own father gave it instead, for love of him.
The story is also a credential. ‘Mentes’ is claiming the oldest kind of tie — ξενία, the guest-friendship his father and Odysseus shared, handed down like an heirloom. It is exactly what lets a stranger sit in this hall and be believed: the bond the suitors are busy trampling. Athena builds her false self out of the sacred thing the poem is about. And a moral marker is dropped in passing — even a poison-seller can be god-fearing, νεμεσίζετο; the suitors, feasting, are not.
Read the full commentary — and tap any word for its dictionary entry — in the interlinear reader.
Open Odyssey 1.260 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 1.260 — The Great Library Project interlinear edition · greatlibraryproject.com/book/odyssey/1.260/