Odyssey 10.271 · Book 10, lines 271–273
I will go alone
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Odysseus — Εὐρύλοχʼ, ἦ τοι μὲν σὺ μένʼ αὐτοῦ τῷδʼ ἐνὶ χώρῳ ἔσθων καὶ πίνων κοίλῃ παρὰ νηὶ μελαίνῃ· αὐτὰρ ἐγὼν εἶμι, κρατερὴ δέ μοι ἔπλετʼ ἀνάγκη.
Eurylochus, truly you must stay right here in this place, eating and drinking beside the hollow black ship; but I will go — strong necessity is upon me.
Word by word
The setting
Eurylochus, who fled Circe's house when his men were turned to swine, has begged Odysseus not to go back for them. Odysseus overrules him. These are his words to his shaken kinsman before he sets out alone toward the witch's hall.
A note on this passage
Odysseus answers Eurylochus's terror with a flat command and a flat fact. Stay by the ship, eat and drink; I am going. There is no argument, no reassurance — only the split between the man who will risk the house and the man who will not.
The weight sits on the last word, ἀνάγκη, necessity. Odysseus does not say he wants to go or hopes to win; he says a hard compulsion has come upon him. The captain who will not abandon his crew frames the rescue not as courage but as something he has no choice about.
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