Odyssey 4.72 · Book 4, lines 72–75
Surely the halls of Zeus
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χαλκοῦ τε στεροπὴν κὰδ δώματα ἠχήεντα χρυσοῦ τʼ ἠλέκτρου τε καὶ ἀργύρου ἠδʼ ἐλέφαντος. Ζηνός που τοιήδε γʼ Ὀλυμπίου ἔνδοθεν αὐλή, ὅσσα τάδʼ ἄσπετα πολλά· σέβας μʼ ἔχει εἰσορόωντα.
the flash of bronze through the echoing halls, of gold and amber, silver and ivory! Surely the court of Olympian Zeus must be such within — so boundless, so many are these things; awe holds me as I gaze.
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The setting
Still whispering to Peisistratus, Telemachus pours out his astonishment at the wealth of Menelaus's palace — bronze, gold, amber, silver, ivory — and guesses that the very hall of Zeus on Olympus must look like this.
A note on this passage
The boy names the treasures one by one, a small inventory of a great king's wealth: gleaming bronze, gold, amber, silver, ivory. Then comes the comparison that gives away how young he is — surely, he says, the palace of Zeus himself must look like this inside. He has no larger measure of splendour than a god's house.
The wonder is real, but the poem sets a shadow behind it. Menelaus's gold was gathered in the long years of wandering that kept him from home while, as he is about to tell, his brother Agamemnon was murdered on his own return. The treasure Telemachus envies was bought at a price — and the boy admiring it is himself far from a house eaten bare by suitors. Sparta's brightness measures Ithaca's want.
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