Odyssey 1.6 · Book 1, lines 6–9
But he could not save them
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ἀλλʼ οὐδʼ ὣς ἑτάρους ἐρρύσατο ἱέμενός περ· αὐτῶν γὰρ σφετέρῃσιν ἀτασθαλίῃσιν ὄλοντο, νήπιοι, οἳ κατὰ βοῦς Ὑπερίονος Ἠελίοιο ἤσθιον· αὐτὰρ ὁ τοῖσιν ἀφείλετο νόστιμον ἦμαρ.
But not even so did he save his companions, though he longed to; for by their own reckless folly they perished — fools, who devoured the cattle of Hyperion the Sun, and he took from them their homecoming day.
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The setting
The proem's turn to loss. For all his striving, Odysseus brought none of his crew home; they destroyed themselves by eating the forbidden cattle of the Sun. The wandering hero is also the sole survivor.
A note on this passage
The proem turns from the man to his dead. He is the hero, but the crew are the poem's first casualties, and Homer is careful about the blame: not the gods, not bad luck, but their own ἀτασθαλίη — the reckless self-will that ate the Sun's cattle against every warning. He wanted to save them; wanting was not enough.
The undercurrent is the word νήπιοι, ‘fools,’ dropped like a bell over men already doomed. It is not only contempt — it is the pity you feel for a child who cannot see where a step leads. The Odyssey's moral world is set here: suffering is not simply sent from above, it is earned from below. Zeus will say the same thing, in almost the same words, twenty-six lines on.
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