Odyssey 2.281 · Book 2, lines 281–284
Leave the suitors to their doom
Read the full text in our reader
τῶ νῦν μνηστήρων μὲν ἔα βουλήν τε νόον τε ἀφραδέων, ἐπεὶ οὔ τι νοήμονες οὐδὲ δίκαιοι· οὐδέ τι ἴσασιν θάνατον καὶ κῆρα μέλαιναν, ὃς δή σφι σχεδόν ἐστιν, ἐπʼ ἤματι πάντας ὀλέσθαι.
Therefore now let be the counsel and purpose of the senseless suitors, since they are in no way prudent nor just; nor do they know at all of death and black doom, which stands near them — to perish, all of them, in a single day.
Word by word
The setting
Athena turns from the son to his enemies — the suitors besieging the house. She tells Telemachus to ignore their scheming and names the fate already waiting for them.
A note on this passage
Athena tells Telemachus to drop his fear of the suitors' plotting: they are fools, and their scheming counts for nothing against what is coming. The dismissal is total — no sense, no justice, no idea of their own end.
The undercurrent is the poem's announced justice, stated flat. Since Book 1 the suitors' destruction has been foretold; here it is named as ‘black doom’ standing at their shoulder, and even dated — ‘all in a single day.’ That day is the slaughter of Book 22. The men eating the house alive plot over the son while their κήρ, the death-spirit, is already in the room; the dramatic irony is that they alone cannot see it.
Read the full commentary — and tap any word for its dictionary entry — in the interlinear reader.
Open Odyssey 2.281 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 2.281 — The Great Library Project interlinear edition · greatlibraryproject.com/book/odyssey/2.281/