Odyssey 3.451 · Book 3, lines 451–454
The women, and the throat cut
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θυγατέρες τε νυοί τε καὶ αἰδοίη παράκοιτις Νέστορος, Εὐρυδίκη, πρέσβα Κλυμένοιο θυγατρῶν. οἱ μὲν ἔπειτʼ ἀνελόντες ἀπὸ χθονὸς εὐρυοδείης ἔσχον· ἀτὰρ σφάξεν Πεισίστρατος, ὄρχαμος ἀνδρῶν.
The daughters too and the daughters-in-law and the revered wife of Nestor — Eurydice, eldest of Clymenus's daughters. Then the men lifted it from the wide-wayed earth and held it up; but Peisistratus, leader of men, cut its throat.
Word by word
The setting
The sacrifice of the heifer to Athena is under way at Pylos; the women of Nestor's house have just raised the ritual cry. Now the poem names them, then turns to the men who lift the victim and to young Peisistratus, who cuts its throat.
A note on this passage
The catalogue of women rounds off the ritual cry raised a line before: Nestor's daughters, his sons' wives, and his own honored consort Eurydice, each given her place in the household by name. Then the labor divides by age and rank — the men heave the heifer up off the ground, and the youngest son at the altar makes the killing stroke.
Homer lets the ordinary hierarchy of a great house show through the liturgy. Peisistratus, the boy who has been Telemachus's escort and bedfellow, is already ὄρχαμος ἀνδρῶν, ‘leader of men’ — a formula that hands him a grown warrior's title at the moment he first draws sacrificial blood. The rite is also a rehearsal of who these young men are becoming.
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