Odyssey 4.341 · Book 4, lines 341–346
Would he came as he was on Lesbos
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αἲ γάρ, Ζεῦ τε πάτερ καὶ Ἀθηναίη καὶ Ἄπολλον, τοῖος ἐών, οἷός ποτʼ ἐυκτιμένῃ ἐνὶ Λέσβῳ ἐξ ἔριδος Φιλομηλεΐδῃ ἐπάλαισεν ἀναστάς, κὰδ δʼ ἔβαλε κρατερῶς, κεχάροντο δὲ πάντες Ἀχαιοί, τοῖος ἐὼν μνηστῆρσιν ὁμιλήσειεν Ὀδυσσεύς· πάντες κʼ ὠκύμοροί τε γενοίατο πικρόγαμοί τε.
O father Zeus, and Athena and Apollo, would that Odysseus, such a man as he once was in well-built Lesbos, when he rose and wrestled Philomeleides in a contest and threw him down mightily, and all the Achaeans rejoiced — being such, may Odysseus meet the suitors: all would be swift-fated and bitterly wed.
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The setting
Menelaus prays that Odysseus might return in his old fighting form. He recalls a wrestling match on Lesbos, when Odysseus threw the local champion Philomeleides to the delight of the watching Achaeans — the strength he now wishes on the suitors.
A note on this passage
The wish is a prayer to Zeus, Athena, and Apollo: let Odysseus meet the suitors as the man who once wrestled Philomeleides on Lesbos and threw him to the army's delight. If so, Menelaus says, the suitors would be swift-fated and bitter in their wooing — dead men, their courtship a doom.
The undercurrent is the memory itself. Menelaus reaches for a bright, specific day, a contest won cleanly before cheering friends, and holds it against the squalid mess in Ithaca. The coined word πικρόγαμος, 'bitter-wed,' folds the marriage the suitors seek into the death they will find: to woo Penelope is to marry one's own ruin.
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