Odyssey 7.215 · Book 7, lines 215–218
Nothing more shameless than the belly
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ἀλλʼ ἐμὲ μὲν δορπῆσαι ἐάσατε κηδόμενόν περ· οὐ γάρ τι στυγερῇ ἐπὶ γαστέρι κύντερον ἄλλο ἔπλετο, ἥ τʼ ἐκέλευσεν ἕο μνήσασθαι ἀνάγκῃ καὶ μάλα τειρόμενον καὶ ἐνὶ φρεσὶ πένθος ἔχοντα,
But allow me to eat my supper, grieved as I am; for no other thing more shameless than the hateful belly has come to be, which by necessity bids a man remember it, even sorely worn and holding grief in his heart —
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The setting
Still addressing the Phaeacians, Odysseus turns from his sufferings to a blunt apology for wanting to eat. He makes the hungry belly itself the culprit — a thing that forces a grieving man to attend to it.
A note on this passage
A famous, almost comic turn in the middle of high supplication. Odysseus asks leave to eat, then blames the request on the belly, which he calls the most shameless thing there is: it will not be quiet for grief, but drags even a worn and mourning man back to the table. The apology is really a defense of being alive.
The undercurrent is how honest this makes him. A lesser guest would hide the appetite; Odysseus names it and turns it into a small law of human nature. The belly here is nearly a character — ‘hateful,’ doglike, insistent — and by owning its pull he shows the Phaeacians a man without pretense, which is itself a kind of credential before people deciding whether to trust him.
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