Odyssey 4.648 · Book 4, lines 648–651
Noemon: I gave it gladly
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τὸν δʼ υἱὸς Φρονίοιο Νοήμων ἀντίον ηὔδα·
Noemon — αὐτὸς ἑκών οἱ δῶκα· τί κεν ῥέξειε καὶ ἄλλος, ὁππότʼ ἀνὴρ τοιοῦτος ἔχων μελεδήματα θυμῷ αἰτίζῃ; χαλεπόν κεν ἀνήνασθαι δόσιν εἴη.
In reply Noemon, son of Phronius, spoke: "I myself gave it to him willingly; what else could a man do, when such a man, holding cares in his heart, comes asking? It would be hard to refuse the gift.
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The setting
Noemon answers plainly. He gave the ship of his own free will, and asks what anyone would do when a man of Telemachus's standing asks a favor with trouble on his mind — refusal would be hard.
A note on this passage
Noemon answers without a trace of guilt, and that is the point: to him the loan was ordinary courtesy. A man of good family asks for a ship with worry plain on his face, and you give it — refusing would be the strange, ungracious act.
His reply is a small portrait of the world the suitors have abandoned. Noemon still operates by the old code of open-handed help among neighbors; Antinous hears the same words and files them as evidence. The gulf between the two men — one giving freely, the other plotting — is the gulf the whole book keeps measuring.
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