Odyssey 4.47 · Book 4, lines 47–51
Bathed, robed, and seated
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αὐτὰρ ἐπεὶ τάρπησαν ὁρώμενοι ὀφθαλμοῖσιν, ἔς ῥʼ ἀσαμίνθους βάντες ἐυξέστας λούσαντο. τοὺς δʼ ἐπεὶ οὖν δμῳαὶ λοῦσαν καὶ χρῖσαν ἐλαίῳ, ἀμφὶ δʼ ἄρα χλαίνας οὔλας βάλον ἠδὲ χιτῶνας, ἔς ῥα θρόνους ἕζοντο παρʼ Ἀτρεΐδην Μενέλαον.
But when they had gazed their fill with their eyes, they stepped into the polished tubs and bathed. And when the maids had washed them and anointed them with oil, they threw woolly cloaks about them and tunics, and they sat down on thrones beside Menelaus, son of Atreus.
Word by word
The setting
The wondering over, the guests are given the full bath-and-clothing ritual that Homeric hospitality owes an honored stranger, then seated at the host's side.
A note on this passage
Another fixed sequence, the bath-scene of xenia: gaze, wash, anoint, robe, seat. The guest is cleaned and clothed by the household's women and set in a place of honor beside the lord — all of it before a single question is asked about who he is or why he has come.
That order is the point. In this world you tend the stranger first and interrogate him second; to demand his name at the door would itself be the breach. Menelaus, whose brother was cut down at his own homecoming feast, keeps the code scrupulously. The care lavished here is not idle luxury but the working proof that this is a house where a guest is safe.
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