Odyssey 2.85 · Book 2, lines 85–88
Antinous blames the mother
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Antinous — Τηλέμαχʼ ὑψαγόρη, μένος ἄσχετε, ποῖον ἔειπες ἡμέας αἰσχύνων· ἐθέλοις δέ κε μῶμον ἀνάψαι. σοὶ δʼ οὔ τι μνηστῆρες Ἀχαιῶν αἴτιοί εἰσιν, ἀλλὰ φίλη μήτηρ, ἥ τοι πέρι κέρδεα οἶδεν.
Telemachus, loud-mouth, unbridled in fury, what a thing you have said, shaming us; you would like to fasten reproach on us. But the suitors of the Achaeans are not at all to blame to you, but your dear mother, who, you know, beyond all others knows cunning wiles.
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The setting
Antinous, the boldest suitor, answers Telemachus. He mocks the young man as a reckless big-talker trying to shame the suitors, then flips the charge: it is not the suitors who are to blame, but Penelope — his own mother — and her famous cleverness.
A note on this passage
Antinous does two things at once: he belittles Telemachus as a hot-headed ‘loud-mouth’ trying to pin blame on innocent men, and he redirects the whole grievance onto Penelope. The suitors, he claims, are the wronged party; the real schemer is the mother.
The charged word is κέρδεα, ‘cunning wiles.’ In this mouth it is an accusation, but it is also the highest Odyssean praise: it is the same cleverness that makes Odysseus πολύμητις, the man of many wiles. Antinous means to condemn Penelope, but the poem hears him crown her as her husband's true match — the wife whose cunning has held the suitors at bay. His insult is, unawares, the family resemblance.
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