Odyssey 4.43 · Book 4, lines 43–46
The gleam of the house
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αὐτοὺς δʼ εἰσῆγον θεῖον δόμον. οἱ δὲ ἰδόντες θαύμαζον κατὰ δῶμα διοτρεφέος βασιλῆος· ὥς τε γὰρ ἠελίου αἴγλη πέλεν ἠὲ σελήνης δῶμα καθʼ ὑψερεφὲς Μενελάου κυδαλίμοιο.
And they led in the men themselves into the divine house. Beholding it, they marveled throughout the hall of the Zeus-nurtured king; for a radiance as of sun or moon lay over the high-roofed house of glorious Menelaus.
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The setting
The team seen to, the two young men are brought inside. Telemachus has never left rustic Ithaca; this is the richest house he has ever entered.
A note on this passage
The guests step in and stop, staring. The poem gives their wonder the grandest comparison it has for a mortal building: the whole hall shines like sun or moon. For a boy raised among goatherds and a suitor-ridden home, Sparta is almost frightening in its wealth.
The simile is worth pausing on. Sun and moon are the light of the gods' own sky, and here that light is said to rest on one man's roof — θεῖον δόμον, a 'divine house.' The wealth is real and dazzling, but the poem will later remember at what cost Menelaus gathered it, wandering years to Egypt while his brother was murdered at home. The gleam is honest; it is also, quietly, the shine on a house that grief paid for.
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