Odyssey 9.263 · Book 9, lines 263–266
We are Agamemnon's men
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Odysseus — λαοὶ δʼ Ἀτρεΐδεω Ἀγαμέμνονος εὐχόμεθʼ εἶναι, τοῦ δὴ νῦν γε μέγιστον ὑπουράνιον κλέος ἐστί· τόσσην γὰρ διέπερσε πόλιν καὶ ἀπώλεσε λαοὺς πολλούς. ἡμεῖς δʼ αὖτε κιχανόμενοι τὰ σὰ γοῦνα
And we claim to be the people of Agamemnon, Atreus's son, whose glory now is surely the greatest under heaven; for so great a city he sacked, and destroyed a host of many peoples. And we, in turn, clasping your knees,
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The setting
Odysseus presses his credentials: they served Agamemnon, sacker of Troy, whose fame now stands highest in the world — then he bends from the boast toward the plea.
A note on this passage
He plays the strongest card a stranger holds: the name of Agamemnon, the man whose glory is greatest under heaven, who levelled a great city and destroyed its people. To belong to that lord is to carry weight. Then he turns from the boast to the request, laying hold of the giant's knees.
The undercurrent is that the card is worthless here. Agamemnon's fame, the whole currency of the heroic world — kleos, the being-spoken-of that outlives a man — means nothing to a Cyclops who lives outside human society and cares nothing for what men say. Odysseus speaks the language of honor to a creature deaf to it, and part of him seems to sense it, for he drops the boast and reaches for the knees.
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