Odyssey 1.40 · Book 1, lines 40–43
Requital from Orestes — paid in full
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ἐκ γὰρ Ὀρέσταο τίσις ἔσσεται Ἀτρεΐδαο, ὁππότʼ ἂν ἡβήσῃ τε καὶ ἧς ἱμείρεται αἴης. ὣς ἔφαθʼ Ἑρμείας, ἀλλʼ οὐ φρένας Αἰγίσθοιο πεῖθʼ ἀγαθὰ φρονέων· νῦν δʼ ἁθρόα πάντʼ ἀπέτισεν.
For from Orestes will come requital for Atreides, once he comes of age and longs for his own land. So spoke Hermes, but he did not persuade the heart of Aegisthus, for all his good intent; and now, all at once, he has paid for everything.
Word by word
The setting
Zeus, still speaking, reports the content of Hermes' warning to Aegisthus and its sequel. Orestes is Agamemnon's son, who grew up and killed his father's murderer — the model of the avenging son the gods keep holding up in Book 1.
A note on this passage
Zeus finishes the warning he had Hermes carry: Orestes would grow up, come home, and exact the reckoning. Aegisthus heard the whole prophecy and acted anyway — so now, the speech closes, he has paid the price in full, all at once.
The debt-language is the point. τίσις is not blind revenge but a settling of accounts, and ἀπέτισεν, ‘he has paid,’ is its matching term — the same root, the ledger balanced. The Odyssey runs on this economy: wrongs are debts, and they come due. Orestes paying for Agamemnon is the pattern the poem will lay over Telemachus and the suitors — the son who comes of age to collect what is owed.
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