Odyssey 4.625 · Book 4, lines 625–630
Back to Ithaca: the suitors at play
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μνηστῆρες δὲ πάροιθεν Ὀδυσσῆος μεγάροιο δίσκοισιν τέρποντο καὶ αἰγανέῃσιν ἱέντες ἐν τυκτῷ δαπέδῳ, ὅθι περ πάρος, ὕβριν ἔχοντες. Ἀντίνοος δὲ καθῆστο καὶ Εὐρύμαχος θεοειδής, ἀρχοὶ μνηστήρων, ἀρετῇ δʼ ἔσαν ἔξοχʼ ἄριστοι. τοῖς δʼ υἱὸς Φρονίοιο Νοήμων ἐγγύθεν ἐλθὼν
But before Odysseus's hall the suitors amused themselves with discus and javelin, hurling them on the levelled floor, where they had before, in their insolence. Antinous sat there, and godlike Eurymachus, leaders of the suitors, far the best in prowess. To them the son of Phronius, Noemon, drawing near, came forward
Word by word
The setting
The scene cuts sharply from Sparta to Ithaca. Outside Odysseus's hall the suitors idle at sport — discus and javelin — with Antinous and Eurymachus as ringleaders. Noemon, son of Phronius, now approaches them.
A note on this passage
The poem cuts, without warning, from Sparta's ordered feast to Ithaca's front yard. There the suitors are throwing the discus and the javelin, killing time on the smooth ground before the master's hall. Antinous and Eurymachus are singled out as their chiefs, 'far the best' — and then Noemon walks up, which will set the ambush plot moving.
The sport is not innocent, and the poem says so in one word: ὕβριν ἔχοντες, 'holding insolence.' They play their aristocratic games on the ground of the man they are robbing, as if the house were theirs. Their being 'best' in athletic prowess is bitter praise here — excellence with no honor under it. That is the exact opposite of the guest-friendship just witnessed at Sparta, and the collision of the two worlds is the whole design of Book 4's close.
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