Odyssey 4.107 · Book 4, lines 107–110
The name, and the unknown fate
Read the full text in our reader
ὅσσʼ Ὀδυσεὺς ἐμόγησε καὶ ἤρατο. τῷ δʼ ἄρʼ ἔμελλεν αὐτῷ κήδεʼ ἔσεσθαι, ἐμοὶ δʼ ἄχος αἰὲν ἄλαστον κείνου, ὅπως δὴ δηρὸν ἀποίχεται, οὐδέ τι ἴδμεν, ζώει ὅ γʼ ἦ τέθνηκεν. ὀδύρονταί νύ που αὐτὸν
as much as Odysseus toiled and earned it. For him woes were destined to be, and for me grief ever unforgettable for that one's sake, since so long he is gone away, and we know nothing at all, whether he lives or has died. Surely now they mourn for him,
Word by word
The setting
Menelaus at last names Odysseus and speaks of his unknown fate — alive or dead, no one can say — then imagines the family that must be mourning him.
A note on this passage
The name lands: Odysseus, who toiled beyond all others. Menelaus states the double burden — trouble fated for Odysseus himself, unending grief for those who loved him — and then admits the unbearable blank: no one knows whether he still lives.
His word for that grief is achos alaston, ‘grief that will not be forgotten.’ The whole Odyssey turns on exactly this uncertainty: a man neither buried nor returned, whose family cannot mourn him properly because they cannot know. Menelaus's guess that ‘surely they mourn him’ points straight across the table at the son who does.
Read the full commentary — and tap any word for its dictionary entry — in the interlinear reader.
Open Odyssey 4.107 in the full reader
Always open passages in the reader
From the Great Library
You are reading a page of the Odyssey — the whole book is free in our interlinear reader.
The Great Library Project presses the classics in their original languages, glossed word by word — free to read, always. Browse the whole library.
Also on our shelves:
Odyssey 4.107 — The Great Library Project interlinear edition · greatlibraryproject.com/book/odyssey/4.107/