Odyssey 8.526 · Book 8, lines 526–531
Wailing, dragged to slavery; so Odysseus wept
Read the full text in our reader
ἡ μὲν τὸν θνήσκοντα καὶ ἀσπαίροντα ἰδοῦσα ἀμφʼ αὐτῷ χυμένη λίγα κωκύει· οἱ δέ τʼ ὄπισθε κόπτοντες δούρεσσι μετάφρενον ἠδὲ καὶ ὤμους εἴρερον εἰσανάγουσι, πόνον τʼ ἐχέμεν καὶ ὀιζύν· τῆς δʼ ἐλεεινοτάτῳ ἄχεϊ φθινύθουσι παρειαί· ὣς Ὀδυσεὺς ἐλεεινὸν ὑπʼ ὀφρύσι δάκρυον εἶβεν.
She, seeing him dying and gasping, flung about him, wails shrilly; but they behind, striking her back and shoulders too with their spears, lead her away into slavery, to bear toil and misery; and her cheeks waste with the most pitiful grief — so Odysseus shed a pitiful tear beneath his brows.
Word by word
The setting
The simile continues and closes. The widow throws herself on her dying husband; the enemy soldiers beat her from behind and drag her into slavery. Her wasting grief is the exact measure Homer gives for Odysseus's tears.
A note on this passage
The picture completes itself with brutal specifics: the men behind her, the spear-butts on her back and shoulders, the road into slavery, a life of toil and misery ahead. Then the single word ‘so’ turns the whole image onto Odysseus, weeping in the bright hall.
The comparison is exact down to the tears: her cheeks ‘waste’ with grief, his tear runs ‘beneath his brows.’ Homer has taken the most helpless figure a sack produces — a captive woman on her way to bondage — and laid her sorrow over the greatest of the sackers. It is the poem's deepest word on what winning costs, made without a line of judgment.
Read the full commentary — and tap any word for its dictionary entry — in the interlinear reader.
Open Odyssey 8.526 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 8.526 — The Great Library Project interlinear edition · greatlibraryproject.com/book/odyssey/8.526/