Odyssey 3.36 · Book 3, lines 36–39
Peisistratus seats them at the feast
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πρῶτος Νεστορίδης Πεισίστρατος ἐγγύθεν ἐλθὼν ἀμφοτέρων ἕλε χεῖρα καὶ ἵδρυσεν παρὰ δαιτὶ κώεσιν ἐν μαλακοῖσιν ἐπὶ ψαμάθοις ἁλίῃσιν πάρ τε κασιγνήτῳ Θρασυμήδεϊ καὶ πατέρι ᾧ·
First Peisistratus, son of Nestor, coming near, took them both by the hand and seated them at the feast on soft fleeces upon the sea-sands, beside his brother Thrasymedes and his own father.
Word by word
The setting
One of Nestor's sons steps forward to receive the guests personally. Thrasymedes is another of Nestor's sons.
A note on this passage
The welcome narrows from the crowd to one host. Peisistratus, the youngest son, is first to reach the guests, and he does everything by hand: takes them, leads them, sits them down on fleeces at the best place — next to his brother and to Nestor himself. The care is concrete and physical, the honor measured in exactly where a guest is placed.
The seat is the message. To put unknown strangers beside the king and his sons is to treat them as equals before knowing a thing about them. And it is Peisistratus who does it — the young man of the house behaving exactly as a young man of the house should. Telemachus, watching, is being shown his own role: this is how a prince receives the world, and it is what he has come to learn.
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