Odyssey 2.71 · Book 2, lines 71–73
Unless my father wronged you
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τείρεσθʼ, εἰ μή πού τι πατὴρ ἐμὸς ἐσθλὸς Ὀδυσσεὺς δυσμενέων κάκʼ ἔρεξεν ἐυκνήμιδας Ἀχαιούς, τῶν μʼ ἀποτινύμενοι κακὰ ῥέζετε δυσμενέοντες,
to be worn out— unless ever in any way my noble father Odysseus, in enmity, did evil to the well-greaved Achaeans, in payment for which you do me evil in requital, in enmity,
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The setting
Telemachus poses a bitter hypothetical: is all this some payback? Did his father Odysseus ever do the Achaeans a wrong, that they now take it out on the son by ruining his house?
A note on this passage
The sentence is built as a challenge. He dares them to name the grievance: unless Odysseus once wronged these same Achaeans, there is no ledger that justifies their repaying it on his son. The vocabulary is deliberately legal — ‘exacting payment,’ ‘in requital’ — the language of a debt being called in.
And Odysseus gets his standing epithet, ἐσθλὸς, ‘noble,’ set against the charge as its refutation: everyone knows he did the Achaeans good at Troy, not harm. The son leans on the absent father's reputation because it is the only defense he has. There is no debt; the suitors are simply plundering, and the careful language of requital only makes their lawlessness plainer.
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