Odyssey 4.514 · Book 4, lines 514–518
The storm carries him to Aegisthus's coast
Read the full text in our reader
ἀλλʼ ὅτε δὴ τάχʼ ἔμελλε Μαλειάων ὄρος αἰπὺ ἵξεσθαι, τότε δή μιν ἀναρπάξασα θύελλα πόντον ἐπʼ ἰχθυόεντα φέρεν βαρέα στενάχοντα, ἀγροῦ ἐπʼ ἐσχατιήν, ὅθι δώματα ναῖε Θυέστης τὸ πρίν, ἀτὰρ τότʼ ἔναιε Θυεστιάδης Αἴγισθος.
But when at last he was soon to reach the steep mountain of Malea, then a storm-blast snatched him up and bore him groaning heavily over the fish-filled sea, to the border of the country, where in former days Thyestes had his dwelling, but now Thyestes' son Aegisthus dwelt.
Word by word
The setting
Agamemnon's ships have cleared the open sea. But as he nears Cape Malea, the notorious southern turning-point of the Peloponnese, a gale seizes his fleet and drives it to a shore now controlled by Aegisthus.
A note on this passage
A single gust undoes the rescue. As he is about to round Cape Malea — the Peloponnese's dreaded southern turn, where fleets were regularly scattered — Agamemnon is caught by a squall and driven, groaning, across open water to a stretch of his own coast. It is the one stretch he should have feared: the land Aegisthus now holds.
The naming is deliberate. This ground once belonged to Thyestes and now to Thyestes' son — the branch of the house of Atreus that Agamemnon's father wronged past forgiveness. The wind that carries the king toward home carries him into an old blood-feud already loaded against him. Homer marks the trap by its lineage before he ever shows the knife.
Read the full commentary — and tap any word for its dictionary entry — in the interlinear reader.
Open Odyssey 4.514 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 4.514 — The Great Library Project interlinear edition · greatlibraryproject.com/book/odyssey/4.514/