Odyssey 4.830 · Book 4, lines 830–834
Does he still see the light of the sun?
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τὴν δʼ αὖτε προσέειπε περίφρων Πηνελόπεια·
Penelope — εἰ μὲν δὴ θεός ἐσσι θεοῖό τε ἔκλυες αὐδῆς, εἰ δʼ ἄγε μοι καὶ κεῖνον ὀιζυρὸν κατάλεξον, ἤ που ἔτι ζώει καὶ ὁρᾷ φάος ἠελίοιο, ἦ ἤδη τέθνηκε καὶ εἰν Ἀίδαο δόμοισι.
In turn wise Penelope answered her: If indeed you are a god and have heard a god's voice, come now, tell me of that wretched man too, whether he still lives and sees the sun's light, or is already dead in the halls of Hades.
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The setting
Penelope seizes on the phantom's claim to divine knowledge. If it truly speaks with a god's authority, then let it answer the one question the dream had carefully skirted: is Odysseus alive or dead?
A note on this passage
Penelope takes the phantom at its word and presses. You say a god sent you and you have heard a god speak — then tell me about him too. The question is put in the oldest Greek terms for being alive: does he still see the light of the sun, or is he already down in the house of Hades. Life is sunlight; death is a roofed dark.
The undercurrent is where her heart really is. The dream came about Telemachus, and she accepted the comfort about her son almost at once. But given a crack of divine knowledge, she spends it not on the boy in present danger but on the husband gone twenty years. The reflex tells the truth her grief keeps circling back to: it is always, first, Odysseus she is asking after.
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