Odyssey 2.68 · Book 2, lines 68–70
By Zeus and Themis
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λίσσομαι ἠμὲν Ζηνὸς Ὀλυμπίου ἠδὲ Θέμιστος, ἥ τʼ ἀνδρῶν ἀγορὰς ἠμὲν λύει ἠδὲ καθίζει· σχέσθε, φίλοι, καί μʼ οἶον ἐάσατε πένθεϊ λυγρῷ
I beseech you by Olympian Zeus and by Themis, who dissolves and convenes the assemblies of men: hold off, friends, and leave me alone — leave me to grievous grief,
Word by word
The setting
Telemachus swears his plea by the two gods who govern the very assembly he stands in: Zeus, and Themis, the goddess of right order who opens and closes the councils of men. Then he begs the suitors simply to stop and let him grieve.
A note on this passage
He turns from the crowd to a formal oath. Zeus and Themis are named precisely because they own this space: Themis is the power that ‘dissolves and seats’ assemblies, the ordered process the suitors are trampling. To swear by her here is to invoke the rule of the meeting against the men breaking it.
Then the register drops from public to raw. ‘Hold off, friends, and leave me alone to grievous grief’ — he stops arguing law and simply asks to be let alone to mourn. The word φίλοι, ‘friends,’ aimed at the men eating his house, is bitter courtesy: he is still bound to address them by the forms of a world they have abandoned.
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