Odyssey 4.171 · Book 4, lines 171–173
I meant to love him above all
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καί μιν ἔφην ἐλθόντα φιλησέμεν ἔξοχον ἄλλων Ἀργείων, εἰ νῶιν ὑπεὶρ ἅλα νόστον ἔδωκε νηυσὶ θοῇσι γενέσθαι Ὀλύμπιος εὐρύοπα Ζεύς.
And I said that once he came I would cherish him beyond all other Argives, if Olympian Zeus, wide-thundering, had granted us two a return over the sea to be made in swift ships.
Word by word
The setting
Menelaus begins the great 'what might have been.' Had the gods granted both him and Odysseus a safe voyage home from Troy, he says, he would have honored his friend above every other Greek who fought there.
A note on this passage
The verb tenses do the work. Menelaus 'said' — meant, intended — to love Odysseus above all the Argives, and the whole promise hangs on a condition that never came true: 'if Zeus had granted us both a homecoming.' It is a plan spoken entirely in the unreal, a gift shaped and then dissolved by the word 'if.'
The undercurrent is the cost of the returns. Menelaus did come home, after his own long straying; Odysseus did not, and so this generous intention has nowhere to land. The passage turns on νόστος, homecoming — the poem's master-word — and here it names the one thing the two friends never got to share. The reward can only be described, never given.
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