Odyssey 6.153 · Book 6, lines 153–157
If a mortal — thrice-blessed your kin
Read the full text in our reader
εἰ δέ τίς ἐσσι βροτῶν, τοὶ ἐπὶ χθονὶ ναιετάουσιν, τρὶς μάκαρες μὲν σοί γε πατὴρ καὶ πότνια μήτηρ, τρὶς μάκαρες δὲ κασίγνητοι· μάλα πού σφισι θυμὸς αἰὲν ἐυφροσύνῃσιν ἰαίνεται εἵνεκα σεῖο, λευσσόντων τοιόνδε θάλος χορὸν εἰσοιχνεῦσαν.
But if you are one of the mortals who dwell upon the earth, thrice blessed, for you, are your father and revered mother, and thrice blessed your brothers; surely their heart ever warms with gladness because of you, as they gaze on such a sapling entering the dance.
Word by word
The setting
Odysseus turns from the divine guess to the human one. If Nausicaa is a mortal girl, he says, then her family is enviably lucky — and he sketches the joy she brings them simply by being seen among her companions.
A note on this passage
The praise widens from the girl to her household. Three times over her parents and brothers are called blessed — not for wealth or deeds, but simply for having her. The picture Odysseus draws is domestic and specific: the family's pleasure at watching her take her place among the dancers.
Under the compliment sits a suggestion he does not press. Everything he names — father, mother, brothers, the joy of kin — is what a marriageable girl brings to a house, and what he himself has been cut off from for years. A man with no home and no people praises, longingly and precisely, the thing he lacks.
Read the full commentary — and tap any word for its dictionary entry — in the interlinear reader.
Open Odyssey 6.153 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 6.153 — The Great Library Project interlinear edition · greatlibraryproject.com/book/odyssey/6.153/