Odyssey 6.145 · Book 6, lines 145–148
He chooses words over the knee-grasp
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ὣς ἄρα οἱ φρονέοντι δοάσσατο κέρδιον εἶναι, λίσσεσθαι ἐπέεσσιν ἀποσταδὰ μειλιχίοισι, μή οἱ γοῦνα λαβόντι χολώσαιτο φρένα κούρη. αὐτίκα μειλίχιον καὶ κερδαλέον φάτο μῦθον.
So, as he pondered, it seemed to him better to beseech her with honeyed words from a distance, lest, if he grasped her knees, the girl be angered in her heart. At once he spoke a honeyed, cunning word:
Word by word
The setting
Odysseus settles the question. He will not lunge for her knees; he will keep his distance and use speech. The narrator frames the coming address before a single word of it is spoken.
A note on this passage
The deliberation resolves into tact. It seemed the better course to plead from a distance with gentle words, precisely so that clutching her knees would not anger the girl. He reads the situation exactly: a naked stranger seizing a young woman would repel, not persuade, and so he chooses the softer approach. Then the frame for his speech: at once he spoke a honeyed and cunning word.
The two adjectives on that speech are the point. It is μειλίχιον, honeyed, and κερδαλέον, cunning — gentle and calculated in the same breath. Homer will not let us mistake the charm for mere sweetness: this is the man of many devices choosing his register to get exactly what he needs. The kindness is real and the calculation is real, and the poem names both without apology.
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