Odyssey 1.276 · Book 1, lines 276–278
Send the mother back to her father's house
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ἂψ ἴτω ἐς μέγαρον πατρὸς μέγα δυναμένοιο· οἱ δὲ γάμον τεύξουσι καὶ ἀρτυνέουσιν ἔεδνα πολλὰ μάλʼ, ὅσσα ἔοικε φίλης ἐπὶ παιδὸς ἕπεσθαι.
Let her go back to her father's house, mighty in power; and they will make a wedding and prepare bride-gifts, very many, such as befit a dear daughter to go with her.
Word by word
The setting
Athena, still in the shape of the Taphian lord Mentes, continues her counsel to Telemachus. Turning from the suitors, she deals with Penelope: if she is set on marrying, let her return to her own father's house, where her kin will manage the match.
A note on this passage
Mentes clears the household question first. If Penelope means to marry, the right course is plain: she returns to Icarius, her father, and her own kin arrange the match and set the marriage-gifts — the daughter ‘follows’ the gifts back into a proper union. It is offered as ordinary law, the way such things are done.
Under the calm procedure sits the whole crisis. Marriage here is a transaction between houses, and the bride-gifts (ἔεδνα) are its currency; the suitors are ruining Telemachus's house precisely because Penelope has not gone home to be married off in order. The tidy formula quietly measures how far Ithaca has drifted from it.
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