Odyssey 7.53 · Book 7, lines 53–55
Supplicate the queen first
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δέσποιναν μὲν πρῶτα κιχήσεαι ἐν μεγάροισιν· Ἀρήτη δʼ ὄνομʼ ἐστὶν ἐπώνυμον, ἐκ δὲ τοκήων τῶν αὐτῶν οἵ περ τέκον Ἀλκίνοον βασιλῆα.
First of all you will meet the mistress in the halls; Arete is the name she bears, and she springs from the very same parents who bore King Alcinous.
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The setting
Still speaking at the palace door, Athena tells Odysseus the crucial move: approach Queen Arete before the king. She begins to explain who Arete is and how closely she is tied to Alcinous.
A note on this passage
Athena tells him whom to approach first: not the king but the queen. Arete he will meet in the halls, and, the poem pausing on her name, she is sprung from the very same parents as Alcinous himself. To win the house, win her.
This is the striking instruction of the book. Odysseus is sent to supplicate the woman, because in this house her assent is what carries. Her name itself leans toward the verb 'to pray,' so that she is, almost by spelling, the one prayed to, and Homer flags it by calling the name 'given for a reason.' Before we have watched Arete do anything, we are told that everything will turn on her.
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