Odyssey 2.25 · Book 2, lines 25–30
Aegyptius speaks: who called us?
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Aegyptius — κέκλυτε δὴ νῦν μευ, Ἰθακήσιοι, ὅττι κεν εἴπω· οὔτε ποθʼ ἡμετέρη ἀγορὴ γένετʼ οὔτε θόωκος ἐξ οὗ Ὀδυσσεὺς δῖος ἔβη κοίλῃς ἐνὶ νηυσί. νῦν δὲ τίς ὧδʼ ἤγειρε; τίνα χρειὼ τόσον ἵκει ἠὲ νέων ἀνδρῶν ἢ οἳ προγενέστεροί εἰσιν; ἠέ τινʼ ἀγγελίην στρατοῦ ἔκλυεν ἐρχομένοιο,
Hear me now, men of Ithaca, in whatever I say. Neither has our assembly met, nor our session, ever since Odysseus, the noble, went off in the hollow ships. And now, who has roused us thus together? What need so pressing has come upon us — whether the young men, or those who are older? Or has he heard some report of an army on the march,
Word by word
The setting
The old man's speech. He notes the plain fact — no assembly has been held on Ithaca since Odysseus sailed for Troy — and asks the obvious question: who summoned this one, and why? He begins to guess at reasons: news of an approaching army, or some other public matter.
A note on this passage
The first speech is a set of questions. Aegyptius marks the strangeness of the day: for twenty years no one has convened the Ithacans, and now someone has. He asks who did it and what need is so great, running through the likely causes — a matter touching young and old alike, or word of an enemy host on the move.
The undercurrent is the vacuum the questions expose. That no assembly has met since Odysseus left is not a neutral fact: it means Ithaca has had no working government in his absence, no forum where the suitors could be checked. The old man's puzzled ‘who called us?’ measures how far the island has drifted — and, without his knowing it, announces that the drift is over, because the one who called it is the missing king's son.
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