Odyssey 10.17 · Book 10, lines 17–18
Odysseus asks the road home
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ἀλλʼ ὅτε δὴ καὶ ἐγὼν ὁδὸν ᾔτεον ἠδʼ ἐκέλευον πεμπέμεν, οὐδέ τι κεῖνος ἀνήνατο, τεῦχε δὲ πομπήν.
But when at last I too asked for the road home and urged him to send me on, that man did not refuse at all, but set about my escort home.
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The setting
When the month is up, Odysseus asks leave to be sent on his way. Aeolus does not refuse but sets about arranging the escort a guest is owed.
A note on this passage
Odysseus asks for the road home, and Aeolus grants it at once — ‘that man did not refuse at all.’ The host moves straight to arranging the send-off, the escort a guest is owed.
Everything works as it should, and that is the trap the poem is setting. The undercurrent is the perfection of the hospitality: Aeolus refuses nothing, prepares everything, gives more help than any host has offered. The nearer the homecoming looks — freely granted, richly equipped — the harder the reversal will fall. Homer builds the height only to measure the drop.
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