Odyssey 4.375 · Book 4, lines 375–378
'I am held against my will — I must have angered a god'
Read the full text in our reader
ὣς ἔφατʼ, αὐτὰρ ἐγώ μιν ἀμειβόμενος προσέειπον·
Menelaus — ἐκ μέν τοι ἐρέω, ἥ τις σύ πέρ ἐσσι θεάων, ὡς ἐγὼ οὔ τι ἑκὼν κατερύκομαι, ἀλλά νυ μέλλω ἀθανάτους ἀλιτέσθαι, οἳ οὐρανὸν εὐρὺν ἔχουσιν.
So she spoke; but I, answering, addressed her: Openly I will tell you, whoever among goddesses you are, that I am in no way willingly held back, but I must have sinned against the immortals who hold the broad heaven.
Word by word
The setting
Stung by the goddess's rebuke, Menelaus answers. He does not know who she is, but he insists his long delay is no choice of his: he must have offended the immortals.
A note on this passage
Menelaus answers the taunt without taking offense. He grants at once that she is some goddess and offers to speak plainly, then defends himself on the exact point she pressed: he is not staying by choice. Something is holding him, and he reasons his way to the only cause a Greek would name — he must have offended the gods.
The theology is quietly bleak. A stalled journey is read as a symptom of divine anger; the delay itself is the evidence of guilt. Menelaus does not yet know which god or what he did, only that the world's not letting him go must mean a debt is owed above. It is the same logic that governs Odysseus's whole exile, and it turns a weather problem into a matter of sin.
Read the full commentary — and tap any word for its dictionary entry — in the interlinear reader.
Open Odyssey 4.375 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 4.375 — The Great Library Project interlinear edition · greatlibraryproject.com/book/odyssey/4.375/