Odyssey 8.241 · Book 8, lines 241–245
Carry our name home
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ἀλλʼ ἄγε νῦν ἐμέθεν ξυνίει ἔπος, ὄφρα καὶ ἄλλῳ εἴπῃς ἡρώων, ὅτε κεν σοῖς ἐν μεγάροισι δαινύῃ παρὰ σῇ τʼ ἀλόχῳ καὶ σοῖσι τέκεσσιν, ἡμετέρης ἀρετῆς μεμνημένος, οἷα καὶ ἡμῖν Ζεὺς ἐπὶ ἔργα τίθησι διαμπερὲς ἐξ ἔτι πατρῶν.
But come now, heed my word, so that you may tell it also to another of the heroes, when you feast in your halls beside your wife and your children, remembering our excellence — such labors as Zeus lays upon us continually, ever since our fathers' day.
Word by word
The setting
Alcinous, king of the Phaeacians, is still speaking to the disguised Odysseus after the athletic games. He has just smoothed over a young noble's insult, and now turns his people's boast into a courteous request.
A note on this passage
Alcinous rounds off his boast into a courtesy. Heed my word, he tells the stranger, so that one day you may tell other heroes of us, remembering our excellence — the labors Zeus has laid on Phaeacians ever since their fathers' time. It is the host's plain request to be remembered well, the honor-economy of guest-friendship stated out loud.
The undercurrent is the picture he paints without knowing whom he paints it for. He imagines the stranger at home, feasting beside his own wife and children, retelling Phaeacian glory. That is exactly the homecoming Odysseus has been denied for twenty years — the wife and son who still wait in Ithaca. The kindest thing Alcinous can offer lands squarely on the guest's deepest wound.
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