Odyssey 9.25 · Book 9, lines 25–30
Nothing sweeter than one's own land
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αὐτὴ δὲ χθαμαλὴ πανυπερτάτη εἰν ἁλὶ κεῖται πρὸς ζόφον, αἱ δέ τʼ ἄνευθε πρὸς ἠῶ τʼ ἠέλιόν τε, τρηχεῖʼ, ἀλλʼ ἀγαθὴ κουροτρόφος· οὔ τοι ἐγώ γε ἧς γαίης δύναμαι γλυκερώτερον ἄλλο ἰδέσθαι. ἦ μέν μʼ αὐτόθʼ ἔρυκε Καλυψώ, δῖα θεάων, ἐν σπέσσι γλαφυροῖσι, λιλαιομένη πόσιν εἶναι·
It itself lies low, highest up in the sea, toward the gloom of the west, while the others lie apart, toward the dawn and the sun; rugged, but a good nurse of youths; and I, for my part, cannot behold anything sweeter than my own land. Truly Calypso, shining among goddesses, kept me there in her hollow caves, longing for me to be her husband.
Word by word
The setting
Odysseus finishes placing Ithaca in the sea and gives his verdict on it — then offers the proof of his love for it: he turned down the goddess Calypso, and the immortality she offered, to go home. His words reach back over the seven years the poem has already told.
A note on this passage
The island's place is fixed — low, farthest out to sea toward the sunset, apart from the rest — and then judged: rough ground, but a good nurse of young men, and he can see nothing sweeter than his own land. To prove it he names Calypso, the goddess who held him in her hollow caves and wanted him for a husband.
This is the poem's whole argument in miniature. Calypso offered him a goddess's bed and, with it, immortality; he set that against a rugged island that had merely reared him well, and chose the island. 'Nothing sweeter than one's own land' is not sentiment here but a verdict on what a human life is for — mortality at home over endless life abroad.
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