Odyssey 3.351 · Book 3, lines 351–355
A host's vow, sworn on Odysseus's name
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αὐτὰρ ἐμοὶ πάρα μὲν χλαῖναι καὶ ῥήγεα καλά. οὔ θην δὴ τοῦδʼ ἀνδρὸς Ὀδυσσῆος φίλος υἱὸς νηὸς ἐπʼ ἰκριόφιν καταλέξεται, ὄφρʼ ἂν ἐγώ γε ζώω, ἔπειτα δὲ παῖδες ἐνὶ μεγάροισι λίπωνται, ξείνους ξεινίζειν, ὅς τίς κʼ ἐμὰ δώμαθʼ ἵκηται.
But I have cloaks and fine rugs. Surely, indeed, the dear son of this man Odysseus shall not lie down on the ship's deck, so long as I myself live, and children are left after me in my halls to entertain guests, whoever comes to my house.
Word by word
The setting
Nestor completes his refusal: his house is well supplied, and while he lives — and his sons after him — no guest, least of all the son of his old comrade Odysseus, will sleep aboard ship. He does not yet know that Telemachus, Odysseus's son, is the very guest before him.
A note on this passage
Nestor answers his own protest: he does have the bedding. Then the real vow — the son of Odysseus will not sleep on a ship's deck while Nestor lives, and after him his children will keep the same open house. The generosity is made hereditary.
The undercurrent is the naming of Odysseus. Nestor has not yet learned the stranger beside him is Odysseus's boy; he swears by 'this man Odysseus' as an old comrade honored in memory. The reader hears the dramatic irony — the guest is exactly who Nestor invokes — and sees hospitality as a bond that outlasts a life, passed down the generations like an heirloom.
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