Odyssey 10.472 · Book 10, lines 472–474
The men: remember home now
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the men — δαιμόνιʼ, ἤδη νῦν μιμνήσκεο πατρίδος αἴης, εἴ τοι θέσφατόν ἐστι σαωθῆναι καὶ ἱκέσθαι οἶκον ἐς ὑψόροφον καὶ σὴν ἐς πατρίδα γαῖαν.
Strange one, now at last remember your native land, if it is fated for you to be saved and to reach your high-roofed house, to it, and to your native land.
Word by word
The setting
Odysseus's companions speak. After a year with Circe they urge him — calling him 'strange one' — to turn his mind at last to Ithaca, if he is fated to return.
A note on this passage
The crew's plea is blunt and affectionate: they call Odysseus 'strange one' and tell him plainly it is time to think of home. They frame the return as something already fated, needing only his will to move.
The address daimoni' — 'strange one,' a word for someone acting under a power one cannot read — is the loving reproach of men who cannot understand why their captain lingers. In a poem where Odysseus drives every homecoming, here his own men must remind him what home is, and the pull of Circe's bed is the unspoken reason.
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