Odyssey 1.341 · Book 1, lines 341–344
The grief that wears the heart
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λυγρῆς, ἥ τέ μοι αἰεὶ ἐνὶ στήθεσσι φίλον κῆρ τείρει, ἐπεί με μάλιστα καθίκετο πένθος ἄλαστον. τοίην γὰρ κεφαλὴν ποθέω μεμνημένη αἰεί, ἀνδρός, τοῦ κλέος εὐρὺ καθʼ Ἑλλάδα καὶ μέσον Ἄργος.
— a grievous one, which always wears down the dear heart in my breast, since a grief unforgettable has struck me most of all. For such a head I long for, remembering him always, a man whose fame is wide throughout Hellas and the heart of Argos.
Word by word
The setting
Penelope finishes her plea. The song of the return is 'grievous' because it is her own: she longs, always, for one man — Odysseus, whose fame runs the length of Greece — and the singing renews an unappeasable sorrow.
A note on this passage
The reason surfaces: the song of the returns is her own story, and it keeps a wound open. Homer localizes the pain exactly — in the breast, at the dear heart — and names the grief ἄλαστον, ‘unforgettable,’ a sorrow that will not let itself be laid down. She speaks of Odysseus without a name, as ‘such a head,’ the person she keeps remembering.
The quiet turn is that his last line is pure Iliadic praise: κλέος running the length of Greece. For a moment Penelope talks like the war-poem, weighing her husband by his fame. But she wants the man, not the glory — and the poem's whole argument is that κλέος does not bring anyone home. The fame is wide; the bed is empty.
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