Odyssey 10.499 · Book 10, lines 499–500
When I had wept my fill
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αὐτὰρ ἐπεὶ κλαίων τε κυλινδόμενος τʼ ἐκορέσθην, καὶ τότε δή μιν ἔπεσσιν ἀμειβόμενος προσέειπον·
But when I had had my fill of weeping and writhing, then indeed, answering her with words, I addressed her:
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The setting
Odysseus recovers himself. He lets the grief run its course, then turns back to Circe with a practical question about the impossible voyage.
A note on this passage
The collapse is allowed to finish. Homer says Odysseus wept and tossed until he had "had his fill" of it, treating grief almost like hunger, something with a natural end. Only when it is spent does he speak again.
This is the poem's realism about strong feeling. It does not make the hero suppress the breakdown or push through it; it lets the weeping exhaust itself first, and only then does the mind come back and ask its question. The turn from lying on the bed in tears to sitting up with a plan is the return of the resourceful man, once the wave has passed.
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