Odyssey 4.814 · Book 4, lines 814–816
A husband lion-hearted, famed through Hellas
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ἣ πρὶν μὲν πόσιν ἐσθλὸν ἀπώλεσα θυμολέοντα, παντοίῃς ἀρετῇσι κεκασμένον ἐν Δαναοῖσιν, ἐσθλόν, τοῦ κλέος εὐρὺ καθʼ Ἑλλάδα καὶ μέσον Ἄργος·
I who once lost a noble husband, lion-hearted, excelling in every kind of excellence among the Danaans — a noble man, whose fame spreads wide through Hellas and mid-Argos.
Word by word
The setting
Still answering the dream-phantom, Penelope turns to the first of her two griefs — the husband already lost. She heaps the hero's epithets on him: lion-hearted, best of the Greeks, his fame filling all Greece.
A note on this passage
Penelope names her first loss and praises it in the fixed language of heroic worth. Odysseus is 'lion-hearted,' pre-eminent in every excellence among the Danaans, a man whose κλέος fills Hellas and Argos. The lines are a compact eulogy, spoken by the person with most right to speak it.
The quiet ache is in the word κλέος — 'fame,' the very thing the warrior culture offers in exchange for a life. Odysseus has the wide fame; Penelope has the empty bed. She recites his glory not as consolation but as measure of the loss: the whole of Greece knows his name, and she still does not know whether he is alive. The honor that outlives a man is small comfort to the wife who wants the man.
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