Odyssey 8.461 · Book 8, lines 461–462
‘Remember me’
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Nausicaa — χαῖρε, ξεῖνʼ, ἵνα καί ποτʼ ἐὼν ἐν πατρίδι γαίῃ μνήσῃ ἐμεῦ, ὅτι μοι πρώτῃ ζωάγριʼ ὀφέλλεις.
Farewell, stranger, so that one day, when you are in your native land, you may remember me, since to me first you owe your life’s price.
Word by word
The setting
Nausicaa speaks to Odysseus for the last time, from the doorpost of the hall. She was the first person to help him when he washed ashore naked and half-dead.
A note on this passage
Her whole farewell is two lines, and it asks for almost nothing: only that he remember her, one day, safe in his own country. She grounds the claim in fact — she was the first to help him, so his life is, in a sense, her gift.
The undercurrent is everything left unsaid. On the shore she had imagined a man like this for a husband; now she knows he is leaving and will not return. χαῖρε is both ‘hail’ and ‘farewell.’ And ζωάγρια — the price owed for a rescued life — turns her plea into a quiet, dignified accounting: not love, just the debt, which is all she can decently name.
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Odyssey 8.461 — The Great Library Project interlinear edition · greatlibraryproject.com/book/odyssey/8.461/