Odyssey 4.31 · Book 4, lines 31–36
Menelaus rebukes the hesitating squire
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Menelaus — οὐ μὲν νήπιος ἦσθα, Βοηθοΐδη Ἐτεωνεῦ, τὸ πρίν· ἀτὰρ μὲν νῦν γε πάϊς ὣς νήπια βάζεις. ἦ μὲν δὴ νῶι ξεινήια πολλὰ φαγόντε ἄλλων ἀνθρώπων δεῦρʼ ἱκόμεθʼ, αἴ κέ ποθι Ζεὺς ἐξοπίσω περ παύσῃ ὀιζύος. ἀλλὰ λύʼ ἵππους ξείνων, ἐς δʼ αὐτοὺς προτέρω ἄγε θοινηθῆναι.
You were no fool before, son of Boethoös, Eteoneus — but now you babble childish nonsense like a child. Truly we two came here having eaten much guest-fare of other men, in hope that Zeus may grant us rest from misery hereafter. But come, unyoke the horses of the strangers, and lead the men in to be feasted.
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The setting
Telemachus and Nestor's son Pisistratus have driven up to Menelaus's palace at Sparta in the middle of a double wedding-feast. The squire Eteoneus, unsure, has just asked whether to send the newcomers on elsewhere. Menelaus answers him sharply.
A note on this passage
Menelaus does not merely order the guests admitted; he shames the man who hesitated. Eteoneus was sensible once, he says, but now talks like a child — because the question itself, whether to turn strangers away, is one a grown man of this house should never have to ask.
The reason he gives is memory. He and the others ate other men's bread all the long way home from Troy, and it is that debt, not sentiment, that opens his doors. Xenia is reciprocity: you feed the stranger because you were once the stranger fed, and because Zeus, who ends misery, is watching the exchange. The returned wanderer keeps the law he once depended on.
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