Odyssey 4.193 · Book 4, lines 193–198
Grief has its measure
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καὶ νῦν, εἴ τί που ἔστι, πίθοιό μοι· οὐ γὰρ ἐγώ γε τέρπομʼ ὀδυρόμενος μεταδόρπιος, ἀλλὰ καὶ ἠὼς ἔσσεται ἠριγένεια· νεμεσσῶμαί γε μὲν οὐδὲν κλαίειν ὅς κε θάνῃσι βροτῶν καὶ πότμον ἐπίσπῃ. τοῦτό νυ καὶ γέρας οἶον ὀιζυροῖσι βροτοῖσιν, κείρασθαί τε κόμην βαλέειν τʼ ἀπὸ δάκρυ παρειῶν.
And now, if it is possible, obey me; for I take no pleasure weeping after supper, but the early-born dawn will come too; yet I begrudge no one weeping for whatever mortal dies and meets his doom. This is the only honor for wretched mortals: to cut the hair, and let a tear fall from the cheeks.
Word by word
The setting
Still speaking, Peisistratus turns from praise to a request: not now, at supper. He grants that mourning the dead is right and no cause for reproach, but says weeping through the meal into the night is not the time. This is the counsel of measured grief.
A note on this passage
Peisistratus makes the case for measured grief. He does not deny mourning — he insists he blames no one for weeping over a dead man, and he calls such rites the one honor the wretched can still be given: a shorn head, tears on the cheeks. His point is only about timing. Weeping through the supper into the night helps nothing, and dawn will come regardless.
The undercurrent is a young man teaching restraint to his elders. The word γέρας — the ‘honor’ or due portion owed to a person — is precisely the term Homer uses for a warrior's prize; here it is repurposed for the dead, whose only remaining prize is to be grieved rightly and then released. Grief is real and owed, but it has a measure, and a meal is not its place.
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