Odyssey 4.684 · Book 4, lines 684–685
A wish for their last supper
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Penelope — μὴ μνηστεύσαντες μηδʼ ἄλλοθʼ ὁμιλήσαντες ὕστατα καὶ πύματα νῦν ἐνθάδε δειπνήσειαν·
Would that they, no longer wooing nor consorting elsewhere, might now dine here for the very last and final time!
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The setting
Still guessing, Penelope breaks into a curse against the suitors: let this be the very last meal they ever eat.
A note on this passage
Penelope's guess boils over into a wish. If they are here to eat again, then let this dinner be their last — may they never woo, never gather anywhere, never dine again after today. The doubled ὕστατα καὶ πύματα, ‘last and latest,’ hammers the finality.
The undercurrent is dramatic irony the audience feels and she cannot. She speaks the curse as pure frustration, a wish she has no power to enforce. But the poem is built to grant it: these men are marked for slaughter, and many of them will indeed take their last supper in this hall. Penelope prays for the ending the story already holds in store.
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