Odyssey 10.463 · Book 10, lines 463–465
Circe: worn out, spiritless, mindful of hard wandering
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τρηχείης Ἰθάκης. νῦν δʼ ἀσκελέες καὶ ἄθυμοι, αἰὲν ἄλης χαλεπῆς μεμνημένοι, οὐδέ ποθʼ ὕμιν θυμὸς ἐν εὐφροσύνῃ, ἐπεὶ ἦ μάλα πολλὰ πέποσθε.
of rugged Ithaca. But now [you are] worn out and spiritless, ever mindful of hard wandering, and never for you is the spirit in good cheer, since truly you have suffered very much.
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The setting
Circe finishes her speech, naming the state the men are in now — drained and joyless from long wandering — and the reason: they have suffered greatly. This closes the goddess's words.
A note on this passage
Circe finishes by naming the men's condition: exhausted, joyless, unable to stop rehearsing their hard wandering. She sets 'rugged Ithaca,' the home they left with full spirit, against the drained men they have become.
The epithet 'rugged' for Ithaca is doing quiet work. It is a poor, rocky island, and yet it is the fixed point of all their longing; the goddess names it at the exact moment she offers her rich table instead. The pull between the hard homeland and the easy stay is the tension the next year will live inside.
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