Odyssey 4.601 · Book 4, lines 601–604
No horses for rocky Ithaca
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Telemachus — ἵππους δʼ εἰς Ἰθάκην οὐκ ἄξομαι, ἀλλὰ σοὶ αὐτῷ ἐνθάδε λείψω ἄγαλμα· σὺ γὰρ πεδίοιο ἀνάσσεις εὐρέος, ᾧ ἔνι μὲν λωτὸς πολύς, ἐν δὲ κύπειρον πυροί τε ζειαί τε ἰδʼ εὐρυφυὲς κρῖ λευκόν.
The horses I will not take to Ithaca; but for you yourself I will leave them here as a treasure, for you rule over a broad plain, where lotus is plentiful, and galingale, wheat and spelt, and broad-eared white barley.
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The setting
Telemachus, guest at Sparta, is finishing his reply to Menelaus, who had offered him horses and a chariot. He declines the gift with tact and praises the broad, fertile plain of Lacedaemon that Menelaus rules.
A note on this passage
Telemachus rounds off his refusal. Menelaus had pressed horses and a chariot on him; the boy declines, but declines in the proper way — not by slighting the gift, but by praising the giver's rich land and asking him to keep the horses that suit it. The Spartan plain is drawn in a quick catalogue of good things: lotus, galingale, wheat, spelt, white barley.
Under the courtesy is a lesson in measure. A gift must fit the one who receives it, and a well-bred guest says so without giving offense. The young man who left Ithaca tongue-tied is here handling a king's generosity with a diplomat's ease — the very poise that marks him, to Menelaus, as his father's son.
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