Odyssey 4.691 · Book 4, lines 691–695
A just king, and thankless suitors
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ἐν δήμῳ, ἥ τʼ ἐστὶ δίκη θείων βασιλήων· ἄλλον κʼ ἐχθαίρῃσι βροτῶν, ἄλλον κε φιλοίη. κεῖνος δʼ οὔ ποτε πάμπαν ἀτάσθαλον ἄνδρα ἐώργει. ἀλλʼ ὁ μὲν ὑμέτερος θυμὸς καὶ ἀεικέα ἔργα φαίνεται, οὐδέ τίς ἐστι χάρις μετόπισθʼ ἐυεργέων.
among the people — which is the way of god-descended kings: one mortal he may hate, another he may love. But that man never at all did a reckless deed to any man. Yet your own temper and unseemly deeds stand plain, and there is no gratitude afterward for good once done.
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The setting
Penelope has come down among the suitors and is rebuking them, contrasting the gentle kingship of the absent Odysseus with the young men's behaviour. Here she finishes the thought.
A note on this passage
Penelope finishes her measure of Odysseus. Other kings play favourites — hating one man, loving another — but he never did a reckless thing to anyone. Against that portrait she sets the suitors: their temper and their ‘unseemly deeds’ stand exposed, and they repay a good king's mildness with none of the gratitude such kindness earns.
The word under the speech is χάρις — the return owed for a kindness, the glue of every Homeric bond between host and guest, king and people. The suitors have eaten that bond along with the food. It is the wrong the poem keeps circling: a house consumed from within while its lord is away, the mirror of Agamemnon's ruined homecoming held up once more.
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