Odyssey 4.94 · Book 4, lines 94–96
‘You will have heard of this from your fathers’
Read the full text in our reader
καὶ πατέρων τάδε μέλλετʼ ἀκουέμεν, οἵ τινες ὑμῖν εἰσίν, ἐπεὶ μάλα πολλὰ πάθον, καὶ ἀπώλεσα οἶκον εὖ μάλα ναιετάοντα, κεχανδότα πολλὰ καὶ ἐσθλά.
And these things you must have heard from your fathers, whoever they are for you, since I suffered very much, and lost a house well-inhabited, that held much good wealth.
Word by word
The setting
Still addressing his guests, Menelaus widens from his brother's death to his own losses across the long years of the Trojan war and its aftermath.
A note on this passage
Menelaus takes it for granted that his guests already know his story — such fame travels down from fathers to sons. He states the cost plainly: much suffering, and a great, well-stocked house diminished.
The line quietly weighs wealth against grief. He has just said his riches bring him no joy; now he calls his losses a ruined house. For a Homeric lord the oikos is not only property but the whole standing of a family — and Telemachus, whose own house is being eaten alive by suitors, is sitting there listening.
Read the full commentary — and tap any word for its dictionary entry — in the interlinear reader.
Open Odyssey 4.94 in the full reader
Always open passages in the reader
From the Great Library
You are reading a page of the Odyssey — the whole book is free in our interlinear reader.
The Great Library Project presses the classics in their original languages, glossed word by word — free to read, always. Browse the whole library.
Also on our shelves:
Odyssey 4.94 — The Great Library Project interlinear edition · greatlibraryproject.com/book/odyssey/4.94/