Odyssey 4.758 · Book 4, lines 758–761
Washed and climbing to pray
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ὣς φάτο, τῆς δʼ εὔνησε γόον, σχέθε δʼ ὄσσε γόοιο. ἡ δʼ ὑδρηναμένη, καθαρὰ χροῒ εἵμαθʼ ἑλοῦσα εἰς ὑπερῷʼ ἀνέβαινε σὺν ἀμφιπόλοισι γυναιξίν, ἐν δʼ ἔθετʼ οὐλοχύτας κανέῳ, ἠρᾶτο δʼ Ἀθήνῃ·
So she spoke, and lulled her lament, and stayed her eyes from weeping. Then she washed, took clean garments upon her body, and went up to her upper chamber with her handmaid women, set barley-grains in a basket, and prayed to Athena:
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The setting
Comforted by the nurse, Penelope obeys, and the scene shifts to the ritual preparations for prayer. In Homeric practice one approaches a god washed and clean, scattering barley-grains as before a sacrifice.
A note on this passage
Eurycleia's words land, and the passage moves from feeling to action. Penelope's weeping is stilled; she washes, puts on clean clothing, climbs to the upper room with her women, lays out the barley-grains, and prays. Each verb is a step in a fixed ritual approach to a god.
The washing is not only comfort but requirement: one comes clean to the immortals, and grief is a kind of stain to be rinsed off first. The barley she scatters is the rite that opens a sacrifice — yet she has no bull to give, only her son's danger and her voice. Hers is the household's version of the hecatombs men burn: petition without the herd, purity standing in for the offering.
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