Odyssey 1.383 · Book 1, lines 383–387
Antinous answers — never be king
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τὸν δʼ αὖτʼ Ἀντίνοος προσέφη, Εὐπείθεος υἱός·
Antinous — Τηλέμαχʼ, ἦ μάλα δή σε διδάσκουσιν θεοὶ αὐτοὶ ὑψαγόρην τʼ ἔμεναι καὶ θαρσαλέως ἀγορεύειν· μὴ σέ γʼ ἐν ἀμφιάλῳ Ἰθάκῃ βασιλῆα Κρονίων ποιήσειεν, ὅ τοι γενεῇ πατρώιόν ἐστιν.
In turn Antinous answered him, the son of Eupeithes: Telemachus, surely the gods themselves are teaching you to be a high-talker and to speak boldly. May the son of Cronus never make you king in sea-girt Ithaca, though it is yours by birth.
Word by word
The setting
The first of the suitors to be named, Antinous son of Eupeithes, answers Telemachus. His reply is mock-praise turned into a curse.
A note on this passage
The poem names its chief villain here, and gives him his first words. Antinous, son of Eupeithes, answers with false congratulation — the gods must be teaching you such big talk — and then delivers the real blow: a prayer that Zeus never let Telemachus be king of Ithaca, even though the kingship is his by birth.
The undercurrent is that the true stake surfaces: βασιλεύς, kingship. Under all the feasting sits a question of power, and Antinous half-reveals it, then curses it. His sneer distorts what Telemachus actually said — the boy claimed his house, not the throne — but by naming the throne, Antinous shows where the suitors' real ambition lies. ὑψαγόρην, ‘big-talker,’ is a coined insult; the mock-piety of ‘the gods themselves teach you’ is the tone the poem will let him keep right up to the arrow that kills him.
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