Odyssey 5.91 · Book 5, lines 91–94
She sets the immortal table
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ἀλλʼ ἕπεο προτέρω, ἵνα τοι πὰρ ξείνια θείω. ὥς ἄρα φωνήσασα θεὰ παρέθηκε τράπεζαν ἀμβροσίης πλήσασα, κέρασσε δὲ νέκταρ ἐρυθρόν. αὐτὰρ ὁ πῖνε καὶ ἦσθε διάκτορος ἀργεϊφόντης.
But come forward, so that I may set guest-gifts beside you. So speaking, the goddess set before him a table, filling it with ambrosia, and mixed red nectar. But he drank and ate, the guide Argeïphontes.
Word by word
The setting
Hermes has just flown to Calypso's cave with Zeus's command. Before any business, the nymph obeys the law of guest-friendship and feeds her divine visitor — the fixed feast type-scene, here served with the food of the gods.
A note on this passage
Calypso finishes her welcome and does the expected thing: she feeds the stranger before she asks his errand. The scene is the standard Homeric feast, run through in a few lines — table set, food heaped, drink mixed, the guest eating — but the fare is ambrosia and red nectar, the diet of gods entertaining a god.
The quiet weight here is the courtesy itself. Hospitality comes first, even when both sides half-know the visit means trouble. Hermes will not state his business until he has eaten; the order of things — welcome, food, then speech — is a law older than the message he carries, and Calypso keeps it flawlessly right up to the moment it costs her everything.
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