Odyssey 10.438 · Book 10, lines 438–442
The sword half-drawn
Read the full text in our reader
ὣς ἔφατʼ, αὐτὰρ ἐγώ γε μετὰ φρεσὶ μερμήριξα, σπασσάμενος τανύηκες ἄορ παχέος παρὰ μηροῦ, τῷ οἱ ἀποπλήξας κεφαλὴν οὖδάσδε πελάσσαι, καὶ πηῷ περ ἐόντι μάλα σχεδόν· ἀλλά μʼ ἑταῖροι μειλιχίοις ἐπέεσσιν ἐρήτυον ἄλλοθεν ἄλλος·
So he spoke; but I, for my part, pondered within my heart, drawing the long-edged sword from beside my stout thigh, with it to strike off his head from him and bring it to the ground, a kinsman though he was and very near — but my comrades restrained me with gentle words, one from one side, another:
Word by word
The setting
Eurylochus has just blamed Odysseus openly, before the crew, for the men lost to the Cyclops. Odysseus, his great sword at his thigh, weighs killing him on the spot — though the two are kin.
A note on this passage
Odysseus's first answer to the challenge is not a word but a blade. He thinks of drawing his long sword and striking Eurylochus's head to the ground, kinsman though the man is and standing close by. His own comrades hold him back with gentle words, crowding in from every side.
The captain nearly kills the one man who told the truth. Homer keeps the impulse and the restraint in a single breath — the drawn sword, then the soft hands of the crew. In this poem command is always a hair's breadth from murder, and only other men keep it there.
Read the full commentary — and tap any word for its dictionary entry — in the interlinear reader.
Open Odyssey 10.438 in the full reader
Always open passages in the reader
From the Great Library
You are reading a page of the Odyssey — the whole book is free in our interlinear reader.
The Great Library Project presses the classics in their original languages, glossed word by word — free to read, always. Browse the whole library.
Also on our shelves:
Odyssey 10.438 — The Great Library Project interlinear edition · greatlibraryproject.com/book/odyssey/10.438/