Odyssey 2.318 · Book 2, lines 318–320
As a passenger, then
Read the full text in our reader
εἶμι μέν οὐδʼ ἁλίη ὁδὸς ἔσσεται ἣν ἀγορεύω, ἔμπορος; οὐ γὰρ νηὸς ἐπήβολος οὐδʼ ἐρετάων γίγνομαι;· ὥς νύ που ὔμμιν ἐείσατο κέρδιον εἶναι.
I will go, indeed, and not in vain shall be the journey of which I speak, as a passenger; for master of no ship am I, nor of rowers do I prove; even so, I suppose, it seemed to you to be more to your gain.
Word by word
The setting
Telemachus finishes his defiance by admitting his poverty of means: he owns neither ship nor crew, so he will travel on another man's vessel — and jabs that this is exactly the state the suitors preferred to keep him in.
A note on this passage
Having threatened, he concedes the truth of his position. He will go — but as a passenger, on someone else's ship, because he commands no vessel and no rowers of his own. The journey will still happen; the ‘not in vain’ insists on that.
The bite is in the last line: this is how you wanted it. κέρδιον — ‘more profitable’ — is the suitors' own logic, the calculating self-interest by which they measure everything, and he throws it back at them. His defiance is real and his dependence total: the men eating his house have left the heir unable even to fit out a ship, and he makes them hear it.
Read the full commentary — and tap any word for its dictionary entry — in the interlinear reader.
Open Odyssey 2.318 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 2.318 — The Great Library Project interlinear edition · greatlibraryproject.com/book/odyssey/2.318/