Odyssey 9.228 · Book 9, lines 228–230
Odysseus refuses
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ἀλλʼ ἐγὼ οὐ πιθόμην, ἦ τʼ ἂν πολὺ κέρδιον ἦεν, ὄφρʼ αὐτόν τε ἴδοιμι, καὶ εἴ μοι ξείνια δοίη. οὐδʼ ἄρʼ ἔμελλʼ ἑτάροισι φανεὶς ἐρατεινὸς ἔσεσθαι.
But I did not obey — truly it would have been far better — so that I might see the man himself, and whether he would give me guest-gifts. Yet he was not going, once revealed, to prove lovely to my comrades.
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The setting
Against his men's advice, Odysseus decides to wait and meet the Cyclops in person — hoping for the guest-gifts a host owes a stranger. He tells the tale knowing how it ended.
A note on this passage
Odysseus overrules the crew, and as narrator he passes judgment on his own choice: it would have been far better to obey. He stayed out of curiosity about the man and out of hope for the guest-gifts that hospitality was supposed to bring.
The undercurrent is xenia turned into a trap. The whole guest-host code — a stranger fed and sent off with gifts — is the moral spine of the Odyssey, and Odysseus walks into the cave expecting it to hold. The bitter irony sits in ἐρατεινός, 'lovely, welcome': the host will indeed be unforgettable to the comrades, but as their killer. Homer lets Odysseus mark his fault openly, the survivor's honesty about the men he did not bring home.
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