Odyssey 4.689 · Book 4, lines 689–690
What kind of man Odysseus was
Read the full text in our reader
Penelope — οἷος Ὀδυσσεὺς ἔσκε μεθʼ ὑμετέροισι τοκεῦσιν, οὔτε τινὰ ῥέξας ἐξαίσιον οὔτε τι εἰπὼν
what sort of man Odysseus was among your parents, neither doing anything outrageous to anyone, nor saying anything
Word by word
The setting
Penelope finishes the thought: their fathers could have told them how just a king Odysseus had been — never cruel, never lawless, to anyone.
A note on this passage
Penelope closes the charge with the portrait their fathers could have given: Odysseus as king was a man who did no outrage, ἐξαίσιον — nothing beyond due measure — to anyone, and spoke no such word either. The sentence runs on past the block's edge, but its heart is here: a ruler remembered for restraint.
The undercurrent is the standard of just kingship the poem keeps holding up. The good king is precisely the one who does not abuse his power, and Odysseus is defined by that measure — the opposite of the suitors devouring his house. Penelope makes the absent husband the living rebuke to the men at her table: he ruled without ἐξαίσια, and they can manage nothing but.
Read the full commentary — and tap any word for its dictionary entry — in the interlinear reader.
Open Odyssey 4.689 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 4.689 — The Great Library Project interlinear edition · greatlibraryproject.com/book/odyssey/4.689/