Odyssey 4.715 · Book 4, lines 715–717
Grief pours over her
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ὣς ἄρα φωνήσας ἀπέβη κατὰ δῶμʼ Ὀδυσῆος. τὴν δʼ ἄχος ἀμφεχύθη θυμοφθόρον, οὐδʼ ἄρʼ ἔτʼ ἔτλη δίφρῳ ἐφέζεσθαι πολλῶν κατὰ οἶκον ἐόντων,
So speaking he went off through the house of Odysseus. But heart-wasting grief poured round her, and she no longer had the heart to sit on a chair, though many were in the house,
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The setting
His answer done, Medon departs. Penelope is left alone with the news that her son is at sea and marked for murder.
A note on this passage
Medon speaks and goes, out through the halls of Odysseus. Left alone, Penelope is engulfed: a heart-wasting grief pours over her, and she cannot bring herself to sit on any of the chairs that stand ready throughout the house.
The detail about the chairs is quietly devastating. A queen in her own hall, surrounded by seats, has no use for a single one; grief has stripped the ordinary comforts of rank away. And the house is named ‘the house of Odysseus’ in the very passage where its mistress can find no place to sit in it — the absent husband's name pressing on the empty room.
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