Homer's Odyssey

The opening four words of the Odyssey are:

Ἄνδρα μοι ἔννεπε, Μοῦσα

Let's go word by word, in Greek's own order:

ἄνδρα — "a man"
μοι — "to me"
ἔννεπε — "tell!"
Μοῦσα — "Muse"

Which is to say, in something like the order Greek puts them: "A man — to me — tell — O Muse." English would have to rearrange this as "Tell me of a man, Muse," because English needs its verb early and its subject before the verb. Greek, as we'll see, does not.

Notice what Homer has done with that freedom. The very first word of the poem is ἄνδρα — a man. Not the verb. Not the Muse. The man. He could have started with ἔννεπε ("tell!") or with Μοῦσα. He didn't. Whatever the rest of this poem is going to say, it is about a man, and Homer puts that fact at the front of the very first line. (The Iliad does the same thing with its first word, Μῆνιν — "wrath.")

Now look more carefully at ἄνδρα. It is not the subject of the sentence. The verb ἔννεπε — "tell!" — is a command, and the one being commanded to tell is the Muse. So ἄνδρα is the object: the thing the Muse is being told to tell about. How do you know? The ending. The form ἀνήρ would have meant "a man" as a subject; ἄνδρα is the same word reshaped to mean "a man" as an object. The change in ending is doing the job that English does with word order.

And the tiny word μοι — "to me". A pronoun. The poet is asking the Muse to tell him specifically. Μοι is itself a reshaped form of the word for "I": Greek pronouns and nouns change shape for their role in the sentence, much as English keeps I, me, my, mine. Greek does this with every noun, not just pronouns, and that is the central fact of the language. The endings carry the meaning.

Two more things on this first line.

Μοῦσα is the Muse — the one being addressed. English uses a comma to mark this: "Tell me, Muse, of...". Greek has a special form for calling out to someone, which the page tag labels vocative. We'll see it again whenever someone speaks directly to a god, a king, or a companion in the poem.

And then, at the far end of the line, sits πολύτροπον. The gloss says "of many turns, much-travelled, resourceful." This is the first epithet attached to Odysseus, and it is a small word full of light.

It is a compound: πολυ- ("many") + τροπ- ("turning"). The root τρέπω means "I turn", and it has wandered into English in several places. A trope is a figure of speech that turns a word from one meaning to another. The tropics are the latitudes where the sun turns back on its yearly path. A trophy was originally a marker raised at the place where the enemy turned to flight. So πολύτροπος — "of many turnings" — is more than just a fancy word for clever. It captures, in a single compound, what kind of man Odysseus is. He turns: from path to path on his journey, from disguise to disguise to survive, from one shape of cunning to the next. The poem's hero has motion built into the word that first names him.

This same word teaches a grammatical pattern that will be everywhere in Greek. How do you know that πολύτροπον, sitting at the end of the line, describes ἄνδρα, sitting at the beginning — rather than describing Μοῦσα or μοι?

Look at the endings. Ἄνδρα and πολύτροπον end with similar shapes (the page tags them both acc.m.sg — accusative masculine singular). When two Greek words share an ending shape, the very strong likelihood is that they belong together: an adjective describing a noun, even when they sit at opposite ends of a line.

This is the first major reading skill to develop. The endings hold the meaning together no matter how Homer scatters the words for rhythm or emphasis. Ἄνδρα ... πολύτροπον — the man, the much-turning one. The meaning sits in the matching endings.

ὃς μάλα πολλὰ πλάγχθη, ἐπεὶ Τροίης ἱερὸν πτολίεθρον ἔπερσεν…

The man is picked up by ὅς — "who" — opening a relative clause that runs across two more lines. "...the man — who was driven very far, who sacked the citadel of Troy..."

The verb of this clause is πλάγχθη — "was driven, was made to wander." Greek has a plain past tense for narrative, and this is it: a simple, clean past — he was driven, it happened. The grammatical name is aorist, and it will be Homer's workhorse for storytelling. Whenever the poem says X happened, you can expect this tense. The endings vary, but they tend to be short: -η, -ε, -εν. (The page tag will identify each one.)

A small word about πτολίεθρον, the "citadel" that Troy is. Even by Homer's time the standard Greek word for a city was πόλις — which English has taken into polis, politics, metropolis, and many others. Πτολίεθρον is the older, longer, statelier form. Homer is reaching back into the deeper past of Greek for a high-style word, in the way an English poet might write tower or fastness rather than building. That πτ- at the start preserves something even older Greek had begun to soften. Homer's lines are full of these old, ringing words, and a part of reading him is hearing the antiquity in them.

The next line will be worth slowing down for — and we will.

Let's slow down and walk through the rest of line 2 word by word, because the order is going to look very strange from English. The phrase is:

Τροίης ἱερὸν πτολίεθρον ἔπερσεν

Word for word, in Greek's order:

Τροίης — "of-Troy"
ἱερὸν — "holy"
πτολίεθρον — "citadel"
ἔπερσεν — "he sacked"

Literally: "of-Troy / holy / citadel / he sacked."

English would set this out as "he sacked the holy citadel of Troy" — verb first, then object. Greek does it the other way around. The verb comes last. The thing being sacked (the citadel) comes just before the verb. The adjective describing the citadel (holy) sits one word earlier. And the of-Troy part comes earliest of all — pulled to the very front of the phrase.

Why that order? Because the of-Troy part is what matters. This is the great moment, the climax of the war that ended ten years ago. Troy is what your eye should land on first. So Homer puts it there.

Now look at Τροίης itself. Its ending — -ης — is something new. The gloss says "of Troy." Where English needs the little preposition of, Greek changes the noun itself: Τροίη would be Troy as a place (as a subject); Τροίης is the same word reshaped to mean of Troy. The change in ending is doing the work of the English word of.

This is the second major job that Greek endings do, after marking subjects and objects: marking what something belongs to, or comes from. The grammar books call this the genitive. Various endings will do this same of-job — -ης, -ου, -ων, the older Homeric -οιο — but the meaning is the same family of meanings: of X, from X, X's. We'll meet three more genitives on the very next line.

And inside the same phrase, look at ἱερὸν πτολίεθρον — "holy citadel." Their endings match: -ον and -ον. Same job as ἄνδρα ... πολύτροπον on line 1 — adjective and noun, sharing an ending, sticking together as a unit even when other words sit around them. Spotting these matching pairs across a Greek line is the single most useful reading habit there is.

So the whole phrase, unpacked: of-Troy (set up front for emphasis) — the holy citadel (adjective and noun in matching endings) — he sacked (the verb, set at the end).

πολλῶν δ' ἀνθρώπων ἴδεν ἄστεα καὶ νόον ἔγνω…

Word by word, in Greek's order:

πολλῶν — "of-many"
ἀνθρώπων — "of-men"
ἴδεν — "he saw"
ἄστεα — "cities"
καί — "and"
νόον — "mind"
ἔγνω — "he came to know"

So: "of-many of-men he-saw cities, and mind he-came-to-know." Or in English: "and he saw the cities of many men and came to know their mind."

Look at the first two words: πολλῶν ἀνθρώπων. Both end in -ων. Both are saying of. Same job as Τροίης — these are genitives. Of-many of-men. And they share that ending because they belong together: "of many men." Matching endings again — the same habit we saw with ἄνδρα ... πολύτροπον and ἱερὸν πτολίεθρον. Greek will keep doing this.

Notice once more how Homer places his words. Of many men is hoisted to the very front of the line, ahead of the verb, ahead of even the cities they belong to. English would have to write he saw the cities of many men; Homer's order makes many men land first, and you feel the scale of Odysseus's travels right there in the rhythm.

The verb ἴδεν — "he saw" — is another aorist, same workhorse past tense as πλάγχθη and ἔπερσεν. Same with ἔγνω — "he came to know." Two past actions, both viewed as completed events.

And there's a small piece of artistry to enjoy here. The line gives Odysseus's knowledge in two complementary halves: he saw their cities (the outer thing, the public face of a people) and he came to know their mind (the inner thing, what they were like underneath). Outer and inner, in a single line. Homer is laying out what kind of traveller this man is.

The little word δ' (a shortened form of δέ, "and, but") near the front of the line, and καί ("and") in the middle, are your first pivot words: small, almost-invisible words that mark the joints between Greek clauses. Once your eye starts spotting them, the long Homeric sentences break up into manageable pieces. They are everywhere.

Πολλὰ δ' ὅ γ' ἐν πόντῳ πάθεν ἄλγεα, ὃν κατὰ θυμόν…

The verb is πάθεν — "he suffered." Another aorist. The object — what he suffered — is ἄλγεα, "woes." And πολλά ("many") agrees with ἄλγεα: matching endings, even though they sit at opposite ends of the line. Πολλά ... ἄλγεα — "many woes." By now your eye is starting to spot pairs like this on its own.

Now look at ἐν πόντῳ — "on the sea." The word πόντῳ has an ending we haven't yet seen: -ῳ. (A long o with a small iota tucked underneath.) This is a third ending-shape worth tracking.

This ending is the one Greek uses for a whole grab-bag of jobs that English would do with little prepositions: in, on, to, for, with, by. With the preposition ἐν it means in or on — "on the sea." With other verbs it will mean to or for. With still others, by means of or with. The grammar books call this the dative. It's the everything-else case: when something isn't the subject and isn't the object and isn't of something, it tends to take this shape.

And you've actually been meeting this case since the very second word of the poem — μοι, "to me." Same case, just in pronoun form. The shape -ῳ is the noun version; μοι is its pronoun cousin. Two ways of marking the same kind of role.

Here's a moment of artistry worth pausing for. Look at the two main locations of the line: ἐν πόντῳ ("on the sea") and κατὰ θυμόν ("down through his heart"). The line moves from the outermost place — the open sea — to the innermost place — the man's own θυμός, his heart, his inner life. Many woes on the sea outside; many woes in the heart within. The same suffering, told from outside and inside, in a single breath. This is the kind of thing Homer does constantly, and a part of reading him is learning to feel the shapes his lines make.

(Θυμός is a word with a long shadow in Greek: it means heart in the sense of spirit, will, the seat of feeling and impulse. It is not the same as the modern English heart, which has been softened by centuries of love poetry. Θυμός is closer to guts — what a person does and feels with, from the inside.)

…ἀρνύμενος ἣν τε ψυχὴν καὶ νόστον ἑταίρων.

A new kind of word appears: ἀρνύμενος. The gloss says "seeking to win." The tag calls it a participle.

A participle is a verb that has put on adjective's clothes. It still carries its verbal meaning — "seeking to win" — but it takes adjective-style endings and describes someone in the sentence. Ἀρνύμενος here describes Odysseus: he suffered many woes, [while] seeking to win his own life and the homecoming of his comrades.

English has the same kind of word: the -ing form. Struggling, hoping, watching, running. Whenever you might write while doing X or as he was doing X in English, Greek often uses a participle. Ἀρνύμενος — "struggling to win" — describes Odysseus through the whole of line 4: he was suffering his woes while struggling to win his life and his crew's return. The next line will give us another one, and they will keep coming. By the end of this passage you will have met five.

Notice the ending of this participle: -μενος. It's a very common shape, and it's worth registering. When you see a word ending in -μενος (or its feminine -μένη, or its neuter -μενον), suspect a participle.

What is he trying to win? Two things: ψυχήν ("life") and νόστον ("homecoming"). Ἣν ψυχήν is another matching pair — "his own life" — possessive and noun, sharing an ending. And νόστον ἑταίρων is another of-construction: "the homecoming of his comrades." The -ων ending on ἑταίρων is doing exactly the same job as on ἀνθρώπων the previous line.

And now a word about νόστος itself. Mark this word, because it's the heart of the poem.

Νόστος means "homecoming" — but specifically the homecoming after a long absence, the safe arrival back at one's own land. It's such an important word in Greek that it has come into English in a quiet way. Combine νόστος with ἄλγος — νόστ- + -αλγία — and you get nostalgia: literally, "homecoming-pain," the ache of being away. The word was coined in the seventeenth century by a Swiss physician for the homesickness of Swiss soldiers serving abroad, and it caught on. Look at where Homer has placed these two words. Ἄλγεα — pains — is right there in line 4. Νόστον — homecoming — is right here in line 5. The two halves of nostalgia, side by side on consecutive lines. Odysseus is the original sufferer of the condition.

And νόστον is going to come back. Watch for it. The poem's central word, declined into every shape that grammar allows, will appear over and over until at last, at the very end, the homecoming itself arrives.

Ἀλλ' οὐδ' ὣς ἑτάρους ἐρρύσατο, ἱέμενός περ…

The sentence pivots on ἀλλά — "but." One of the great correcting words of Greek. He was trying to bring his crew home; but he could not.

Homer signposts the joints of his long sentences with small light words at the front of clauses: ἀλλά ("but"), δέ ("and, but"), γάρ ("for"), αὐτάρ ("yet"). These are the connective tissue of Greek storytelling. Once your eye starts spotting them, long sentences break up into manageable pieces. Almost every line of Book 1 has one.

The verb is ἐρρύσατο — "he rescued." Another past-tense form, doing the same kind of work as the aorists you've been meeting.

And at the end of the line: ἱέμενος — "yearning." Another participle, another -μενος ending. Two participles in two consecutive lines, both describing Odysseus, both with the same shape: ἀρνύμενος in line 5, ἱέμενος in line 6. The pattern is already settling.

The small word περ tacked onto the participle here means "although." Ἱέμενός περ — "although yearning." A common Homeric flavouring word; you'll see περ most often attached to a participle, and it will usually mean although.

…αὐτῶν γὰρ σφετέρῃσιν ἀτασθαλίῃσιν ὄλοντο.

Γάρ — "for" — is the pivot word for this line. It explains the previous line. He could not save them — for they perished...

The verb is ὄλοντο — "they perished." That -ντο ending is a useful one to remember: it's a third-person plural past ending. Whenever you see -ντο, think they — they did something.

In the middle of the line is a long phrase: σφετέρῃσιν ἀτασθαλίῃσιν. Two long words, sharing the same ending — -ῃσιν — and so belonging together. By their own reckless follies.

This ending is one of Homer's old habits. Later Greek would have written these words σφετέραις ἀτασθαλίαις — shorter. Homer keeps the older, longer form -ῃσι(ν). The job is the same one you met on πόντῳ in line 4: the everything-else case, here doing its by means of work — "by their own follies." Just plural, feminine, and a syllable longer.

There's a masculine version of the same long ending, -οισι(ν). You'll see it in just a few lines (line 15: σπέσσι γλαφυροῖσι, "in hollow caves"). Same case, doing the same kinds of jobs, just with the longer Homeric spelling. From here on, when you see endings like -ῃσι or -οισι or -εσσι on a noun, take them as the everything-else case in the plural and read on.

Νήπιοι, οἳ κατὰ βοῦς Ὑπερίονος Ἠελίοιο…

The line opens with a single word as a kind of judgement: νήπιοι — "fools." It hangs off the previous line, naming the men who perished by their own follies.

Notice the ending: -οι. This is the standard ending for masculine plural subjects — the they form for groups of men. You'll see it constantly: νήπιοι here, then ἄλλοι ("others") on line 11, θεοί ("gods") on line 17, and many more. Whenever you see a noun or adjective ending in -οι, the strong likelihood is that it is plural and probably the subject of some verb.

Then οἵ — "who" — opens a relative clause, picking up νήπιοι. Same -οι ending, of course, because who refers back to fools, and they have to match: both plural, both masculine.

The little word νήπιος is worth a moment. Its origin is debated, but the most likely answer is that it comes from νη- ("not") + something like ἔπος ("speech") — so a νήπιος is originally "the speechless one," the infant who can't yet talk. From this it generalised to foolish, childish, witless. Homer uses it again and again of mortals who can't see what is right in front of them. There is something very tender in the word, and also something pitiless. The crew did the unspeakable thing, the thing one should know better than to do — and they are νήπιοι. Children, who didn't know.

Now watch κατά. It looks like a preposition ("down, throughout"), but there's no obvious noun nearby for it to attach to. Hold on to it. Its real target is on the next line — we'll see why in a moment.

ἤσθιον· αὐτὰρ ὁ τοῖσιν ἀφείλετο νόστιμον ἦμαρ.

The verb of the relative clause finally arrives: ἤσθιον — "they were eating." And here Homer slips in a new past tense.

The aorist gave you clean snapshots: he sacked, he saw, he came to know. This is something different. Ἤσθιον says they were eating: the action unfolding, the camera lingering. The destruction of the crew was not one impulsive bite; it was a feast that went on. Greek calls this tense the imperfect, and it's the second-most-common past tense after the aorist. A good rough rule: aorist = it happened, imperfect = it was happening.

Now go back to κατά on line 8. It belongs to this verb. The original word is κατήσθιον — "they were devouring (down)." Homer has split it apart and let other words fall between. This habit has a name: tmesis, "a cutting." Whenever you see a small preposition floating loose, with nothing near it to govern, look further along the line for a verb it may belong to. Tmesis is rare in later Greek but common in Homer — once you start spotting it, his long sentences shorten.

Whose cattle did they devour? Look back at line 8: βοῦς Ὑπερίονος Ἠελίοιο — "the cattle of Hyperion the Sun." Two of-words. Ὑπερίονος uses the standard -ος ending you've seen before. Ἠελίοιο uses something new: -οιο. This is one of Homer's old habits: an of-ending in -οιο where later Greek would have written -ου. It's purely a longer way of saying the same thing. Ἠελίοιο means "of the Sun" — same as the later Ἡλίου. You'll see this -οιο form often, and from here on the commentary will just treat it as another way of saying of.

After the semicolon, the line pivots: αὐτὰρ ὁ τοῖσιν ἀφείλετο νόστιμον ἦμαρ — "but he took away from them the day of their returning." Αὐτάρ ("but, yet") is a pivot word, cousin to ἀλλά. Ὁ ("he") is the Sun-god, taking his revenge.

And there is νόστος again — this time as an adjective, νόστιμον, meaning of-returning or homeward. It describes ἦμαρ, "day." The day of returning. Same root as νόστον on line 5, in a slightly different shape. The keyword keeps coming back, and the homecoming is what the sun takes away.

Τῶν ἁμόθεν γε, θεά, θύγατερ Διός, εἰπὲ καὶ ἡμῖν.

The proem closes by looping back to its opening request.

The verb εἰπέ ("tell!") is a sister command to ἔννεπε on line 1 — same kind of word, same kind of imperative. The poet asked at the start μοι ("to me"); he ends καὶ ἡμῖν ("to us also"). The audience has expanded — you are now in this with Homer.

The two phrases θεά ("goddess") and θύγατερ Διός ("daughter of Zeus") name the Muse again, this time addressing her directly. Both are vocatives — both forms for calling out to someone. (Notice Διός: "of Zeus." Another of-word, doing the same job as Τροίης or ἑταίρων. Greek's pronouns and god-names can look irregular in their shapes, but the jobs they do are the same as every other noun's.)

And here, at line 10, the proem is over.

Look back at what these ten lines have done. Homer has set out the man, the wandering, the sacking, the seeing, the knowing, the suffering, the failed rescue, the sin of the crew, and the lost homecoming — and you have read all of it in Greek. The matching endings have told you what belongs with what. The pivot words have shown you the joints. Three different ending-jobs — subject, object, of, the everything-else — have done their work, mostly without being given proper names.

From here, the commentary will thin out a little. The next twenty lines mostly let what you've already met return and settle, and the entries will be shorter as a result.

Ἔνθ' ἄλλοι μὲν πάντες, ὅσοι φύγον αἰπὺν ὄλεθρον…

The proem is over; the narration begins.

The subject is ἄλλοι πάντες — "all the others." Two -οι endings, both plural and masculine, both belonging together: matching endings. Inside the clause is a small relative clause: ὅσοι φύγον αἰπὺν ὄλεθρον — "as many as had escaped sheer destruction." Ὅσοι ("as many as") is another -οι word picking up ἄλλοι. Φύγον is an aorist — they escaped. And αἰπὺν ὄλεθρον ("sheer destruction") is yet another matching pair, adjective and noun sharing an ending.

Now watch the tiny word μέν, sitting just after ἄλλοι. This is the opening half of one of the most useful patterns in Greek: μέν … δέ. It tells you a contrast is coming. On the one hand, all the others were at home — on the other hand... The δέ that answers will come two lines later, when the camera swings to Odysseus.

For now, just register the cue. When you see μέν, the δέ that completes the thought is somewhere ahead.

οἴκοι ἦσαν, πόλεμόν τε πεφευγότες ἠδὲ θάλασσαν·

"They were at home, having escaped both war and the sea."

Ἦσαν is "they were" — a past form of "to be." Οἴκοι ("at home") is an adverb, not a noun (the ending is its own thing — don't worry about it).

The word πεφευγότες — "having escaped" — is another participle, but a different ending from the -μενος family you've been seeing. Πεφευγότες ends in -οτες. This is a participle with a slightly different flavour: it describes a completed action whose effect is still in force. They escaped, and they are now in the state of having escaped. Πεφευγότες shares its ending shape with the they it describes: -ες on a plural masculine subject. Same matching habit, different ending family.

The little pair τε ... ἠδέ ("both ... and") couples the two objects: πόλεμον ("war") and θάλασσαν ("sea"). Same job as the τε ... καί you saw on line 5. Both are Homeric ways of saying both X and Y.

τὸν δ' οἶον νόστου κεχρημένον ἠδὲ γυναικός…

Here is the δέ that μέν has been waiting for since line 11. The contrast finally lands.

Notice how Homer makes it bite. The first half opened with ἄλλοι — plural, in the subject form, -οι ending: "all the others." This half opens with τόν — singular, in the object form, -ν ending: "him." The grammar has already announced the difference between the two halves before any verb arrives. They were doing something on their own (being at home, safely); him, someone else is doing something to.

Οἶον ("alone") matches τόν: same ending, agreeing.

The two of-words νόστου and γυναικός tell you what the participle κεχρημένον ("in need") describes him as needing. "Of his homecoming, of a wife." Another participle — another set of matching endings, this one in the -μενον family (the singular masculine object form of the -μενος shape). Κεχρημένον shares its ending with τόν: both in the object form, both masculine singular.

And there is νόστος yet again. Line 5: object form νόστον. Line 9: adjective νόστιμον. Now line 13: of-form νόστου. The same word, three shapes, the homecoming told from three angles. Homer is laying down his theme by repeating the keyword in every grammatical position the language allows.

νύμφη πότνια ἔρυκε Καλυψώ, δῖα θεάων…

The verb is ἔρυκε — "she was holding back." The imperfect tense again, the action stretching: Calypso was keeping him, year after year. An aorist would have flattened it into a single moment.

The subject is a long, deliberately stacked name: νύμφη πότνια ... Καλυψώ, δῖα θεάων. "A queenly nymph — Calypso — bright among goddesses." Four words doing the work of one.

And a moment for the goddess's name. Καλυψώ comes from the verb καλύπτω — "to cover, to hide, to conceal." Calypso is, quite literally, The Hider. She is the one who has hidden Odysseus from the world for seven years. (The same root has reached English in unexpected ways: eucalyptus is εὖ- + καλυπτ- — "well-covered," because the bud of the eucalyptus flower is hidden under a tight cap. And in Christian Greek, Apocalypse — ἀπο-κάλυψις — is literally "un-covering," the lifting of the veil.) When Homer names this goddess, he is naming a function: the concealer.

The last part of the line — δῖα θεάων — is worth noting as a different kind of unit. It is a Homeric formula: a recurring chunk that the poet drops in whenever he wants to honour a major goddess. Bright among goddesses. It will turn up again, attached to other goddesses too. The right way to read formulae is not word by word but as a single unit, the way an English poet writes the rose-red dawn. Recognise the chunk.

(Θεάων at the end is another of-word — "of goddesses" — the older Homeric form of θεῶν. The same of-job you've been seeing all along.)

ἐν σπέσσι γλαφυροῖσι, λιλαιομένη πόσιν εἶναι.

Ἐν σπέσσι γλαφυροῖσι — "in hollow caves." Same kind of phrase as ἐν πόντῳ in line 4 (the everything-else case after ἐν means in). And there is that long Homeric dative-plural ending -οισι we said would come — γλαφυροῖσι, "hollow," plural. Now you've seen the masculine version after meeting the feminine -ῃσιν on line 7.

Λιλαιομένη — another participle, ending in -μενη. Same family as -μενος, but this time feminine, because it describes Calypso rather than Odysseus. (Line 5: ἀρνύμενος, describing Odysseus, masculine. Now λιλαιομένη, describing Calypso, feminine. Same participle-shape, different gender of the person described.)

That's five participles in eleven lines: ἀρνύμενος (5), ἱέμενος (6), πεφευγότες (12), κεχρημένον (13), λιλαιομένη (15). Each describes someone in the sentence, and each agrees with whomever it describes. By now you can probably recognise the shape on sight.

The little phrase πόσιν εἶναι — "to be her husband" — uses εἶναι, the bare to be. This bare form of a verb is called an infinitive, and Greek uses it the way English does: I want to leave, he tried to help. The whole phrase πόσιν εἶναι is what Calypso is yearning for: that he should be her husband.

Ἀλλ' ὅτε δὴ ἔτος ἦλθε περιπλομένων ἐνιαυτῶν, τῷ οἱ ἐπεκλώσαντο θεοὶ οἴκόνδε νέεσθαι…

The pivot word ἀλλά opens the line again. And just after it comes a new small word: ὅτε — "when." Ὅτε opens a time clause: when X happened, then Y happened. You'll see this often.

The time clause runs to the end of line 16: ὅτε δὴ ἔτος ἦλθε περιπλομένων ἐνιαυτῶν — "when the year came, with the seasons revolving." Ἦλθε ("came") is an aorist. The two long words περιπλομένων ἐνιαυτῶν both end in -ων — both of-words — and together they form a small atmospheric phrase: "of the seasons revolving." We'll meet this kind of construction properly when it next returns.

Line 17 brings the main clause. The subject is θεοί ("the gods") — the -οι subject ending again. The verb is ἐπεκλώσαντο ("they spun out, they ordained"), with that -ντο ending we've started to recognise: they did the spinning. The gods spun out for him a return.

What did they spin? Νέεσθαι — "to return." Another infinitive, like εἶναι in line 15. And οἴκόνδε — "homeward" — is a small Homeric trick worth a note: it's οἶκον ("home") plus the suffix -δε ("toward"). The -δε suffix marks direction. You'll see it on other place-names — Ἰθάκηνδε ("toward Ithaca") shows up further down the page.

(Οἱ with a smooth breathing — "to him" — is a tiny pronoun referring to Odysseus. Same everything-else case as μοι on line 1, just a different person.)

εἰς Ἰθάκην· οὐδ' ἔνθα πεφυγμένος ἦεν ἀέθλων καὶ μετὰ οἷσι φίλοισι. θεοὶ δ' ἐλεαίρον ἅπαντες…

A tiny grammar gift first: εἰς Ἰθάκην — "to Ithaca." The preposition εἰς ("to, into") names a destination, and the noun it points to takes the object-form shape you saw on ἄνδρα, πόντον, ἄλγεα. Εἰς + object-form = motion toward. Pair this in your mind with ἐν + everything-else-form ("in, on") from line 4: εἰς for motion toward, ἐν for resting at. Two of the most common prepositions in the poem, doing complementary jobs of space.

Then the twist. Οὐδ' ἔνθα πεφυγμένος ἦεν ἀέθλων — "not even there had he escaped from toils." Οὐδέ ("not even") is a heavy negation. The verb ἦεν is an older Homeric form of ἦν — "he was." Same word, longer shape; just file it.

And there is yet another participle: πεφευγμένος ("having escaped"), describing Odysseus. The word ἀέθλων ("from toils") is in the of-shape. Why? Because verbs of escaping, fleeing, separating naturally take an of-noun in Greek: free from toils, escaped from toils. The same shape carries both senses.

Line 19 ends with the affectionate phrase μετὰ οἷσι φίλοισι — "among his own folk" — and there's that long -οισι ending again, which by now reads on sight.

Then the sentence pivots back to the gods: θεοὶ δ' ἐλεαίρον ἅπαντες — "and all the gods pitied him." Ἐλεαίρον is an imperfect: pity drawn out, lingering across the years. Ἅπαντες ("all") matches θεοί, both -οι-words.

Νόσφι Ποσειδάωνος· ὁ δ' ἀσπερχὲς μενέαινεν ἀντιθέῳ Ὀδυσῆι, πάρος ἣν γαῖαν ἱκέσθαι.

The drama tightens. Every god pitied Odysseus — νόσφι Ποσειδάωνος, "except for Poseidon." (Νόσφι takes an of-noun: Ποσειδάωνος, the god's name in the of-form. Note in passing the older Homeric vowels — Ποσειδάων- where later Greek would have written Ποσειδῶν-. Same god, longer name.)

Then the δέ-pivot: ὁ δ' ἀσπερχὲς μενέαινεν. "But he was raging relentlessly." Ὁ ("he") is Poseidon. And μενέαινεν is an imperfect — exactly the right tense for ten years of unbroken anger. An aorist would have flattened it into one outburst.

The object of his rage: ἀντιθέῳ Ὀδυσῆι — "at godlike Odysseus." Notice the two words match, both ending in -ι. The everything-else case again, here marking the target of an emotion: rage at someone.

And: ἀντίθεος Ὀδυσσεύς — "godlike Odysseus" — is your second epithet-formula, after δῖα θεάων on line 14. Recognise it as a chunk. It will return many times across the poem, reshaped into whatever form the sentence needs. Here in the everything-else case; later you'll meet it in the subject form, the object form, the vocative.

Line 21 closes with a small time-clause: πάρος ἣν γαῖαν ἱκέσθαι — "before he should reach his own land." Ἱκέσθαι is another infinitive (you can hear the -σθαι ending, like νέεσθαι on line 17). And ἣν γαῖαν ("his own land") is one more matching-endings pair: possessive and noun sharing their ending.

We've reached line 21. The poem's first scene is set; the gods will assemble in the next few lines, and the next stretch — Poseidon at the ends of the earth, Zeus thinking about Aegisthus — will mostly let the patterns you've already met do their work without much new commentary.

Ἀλλ' ὁ μὲν Αἰθίοπας μετεκίαθε τηλόθ' ἐόντας…

The pivot word ἀλλά turns us to where Poseidon actually is right now: away. Ὁ μέν — "on the one hand, he" — opens another μέν … δέ contrast, like the one between ἄλλοι μέν (line 11) and τὸν δέ (line 13). The answering δέ will arrive on line 26, when the camera swings back to the other gods on Olympus.

The verb μετεκίαθε ("had gone among") is an imperfect — the going stretches across time, like ἤσθιον (line 9) and ἔρυκε (line 14).

Τηλόθ' ἐόντας ("being far off") is another participle, this time in an -οντας shape, describing the Ethiopians. In Homer's world they live at the limit of the earth, where the sun meets the ground. The next line will show you exactly where.

Αἰθίοπας, τοί, διχθὰ δεδαίαται, ἔσχατοι ἀνδρῶν…

A pause to characterise these far-off people. Διχθὰ δεδαίαται — "they are split in two."

The verb δεδαίαται has a new shape worth registering. Notice the reduplicated δε- at the front (δε-δαίαται) — this is the mark of the perfect tense, which describes a state resulting from a past event. They were divided once, and are now in a divided state. You met another perfect already on line 12: πεφευγότες ("having escaped"), with the same reduplication trick (πε-φευγότες).

Ἔσχατοι ἀνδρῶν — "farthermost of men." Ἔσχατοι takes the subject ending you know; ἀνδρῶν is an of-word doing an out-of-the-whole job: of all men, these are the farthest.

οἱ μὲν δυσομένου Ὑπερίονος, οἱ δ' ἀνιόντος…

Look at the shape of this line. Οἱ μέν … οἱ δέ … — "some … others …". A μέν … δέ in miniature, perfectly balanced inside a single line: some live where Hyperion (the Sun) sets, others where he rises. East and west, dawn and dusk, set inside a single hexameter — the whole sky in twelve words.

Δυσομένου and ἀνιόντος are participles in the of-form, agreeing with Ὑπερίονος ("of Hyperion"). "Of-the-setting Hyperion," "of-the-rising [Hyperion]." Two participles, two opposite motions, matching endings telling you what goes with what.

ἀντιόων ταύρων τε καὶ ἀρνειῶν ἑκατόμβης

The line piles up of-words: ταύρων ("of bulls"), ἀρνειῶν ("of rams"), ἑκατόμβης ("of a hecatomb"). The verb ἀντιόων ("partaking in, receiving a share of") naturally takes its object in the of-form — the same partitive logic you saw on line 23 (ἔσχατοι ἀνδρῶν) and line 10 (τῶν). You take a part of the offering, not the whole.

(A hecatomb — ἑκα-τόμβη — is literally "a hundred bull-sacrifice," from ἑκατόν "hundred" + βοῦς "ox." The word has come into English unchanged. The Greeks reserved it for the grandest sacrifices.)

ἔνθ' ὅ γ' ἐτέρπετο δαιτὶ παρήμενος· οἱ δὲ δὴ ἄλλοι…

There it is: the δέ that has been waiting since ὁ μέν on line 22. Οἱ δὲ δὴ ἄλλοι — "but the others, indeed." Poseidon on one hand; the rest of the gods on the other.

Ἐτέρπετο ("he was rejoicing") is an imperfect — pleasure stretching out. The verb is also in middle form (the -ετο ending): in the middle voice, the subject's own enjoyment is part of the meaning. He was taking his joy in himself, at the feast. Greek's middle voice often does this looping-back work for verbs of feeling, perceiving, deliberating; for now, just register that a verb in -ετο / -ατο / -ντο is often a middle.

Δαιτί ("at the feast") is the everything-else case. Παρήμενος ("sitting beside") is yet another participle.

Ζηνὸς ἐνὶ μεγάροισιν Ὀλυμπίου ἁθρόοι ἦσαν.

"They were gathered in the halls of Olympian Zeus."

Two of-words frame the location: Ζηνός ("of Zeus") and Ὀλυμπίου ("of Olympian"), both genitive, both belonging to the same name. They sit on either side of the dative μεγάροισιν ("in the halls"), making a small architectural frame around the place itself.

Ζηνός is a variant of Διός, which you saw on line 10. Same god, different name-shape; Greek has more than one way of declining its great names. (Note also ἐνί, a Homeric variant of ἐν. Same preposition, one syllable longer.)

τοῖσι δὲ μύθων ἦρχε πατὴρ ἀνδρῶν τε θεῶν τε…

"Among them began the speeches the father of men and of gods."

Τοῖσι ("among them") is the everything-else case in the plural — same job as ἐν πόντῳ (line 4), now in the plural and meaning among. Μύθων is an of-word; verbs of beginning naturally take their object in the of-form ("he began of speeches").

And here is the great epithet: πατὴρ ἀνδρῶν τε θεῶν τε — "father of men and of gods." This is Zeus's signature title, a recurring chunk just like δῖα θεάων (line 14) and ἀντίθεος Ὀδυσσεύς (line 21). Recognise it as a single unit. The doubled τε … τε — "both … and" — is a stately, formal touch.

μνήσατο γὰρ κατὰ θυμὸν ἀμύμονος Αἰγίσθοιο…

"For he remembered down through his heart of blameless Aegisthus."

Stop and notice κατὰ θυμόν. This is the exact phrase from line 4 — πάθεν ἄλγεα ὃν κατὰ θυμόν, "he suffered woes down through his heart." Then, it was Odysseus's heart aching at sea. Now, it is Zeus's heart, on Olympus, suddenly aching with memory. Homer uses the same phrase to mark a similar interior moment in a very different scene.

Μνήσατο ("he remembered") takes its object in the of-form: ἀμύμονος Αἰγίσθοιο, "of blameless Aegisthus." Verbs of remembering, hearing, longing all naturally reach for the of-form in Greek — there is an old logic about these acts being a partial grasp on something. The thing remembered is held of, not held entire.

τόν ῥ' Ἀγαμεμνονίδης τηλεκλυτὸς ἔκταν' Ὀρέστης.

A perfect mini-portrait. Τόν ("whom") picks up Aegisthus from the previous line. The subject is Ὀρέστης ("Orestes"), held back to the very end of the line for dramatic weight. Between them: Ἀγαμεμνονίδης τηλεκλυτός — "son-of-Agamemnon far-famed," the avenger's pedigree spread across the line.

Ἀγαμεμνονίδης shows a useful pattern. The ending -ίδης makes a patronymic — "son of X." Ἀτρεΐδης (line 35) will mean "son of Atreus." In the Iliad, Πηληϊάδης means "son of Peleus" (= Achilles). Whenever you see -ίδης on a name, look for an ancestor's name in front of it.

τοῦ ὅ γ' ἐπιμνησθεὶς ἔπε' ἀθανάτοισι μετηύδα…

"Mindful of him, he spoke words among the immortals."

Τοῦ is the of-form of "him" — Aegisthus. Ἐπιμνησθεὶς is an aorist participle agreeing with Zeus: "having been put in mind [of him]." Ἀθανάτοισι is the everything-else case in the plural — "among the immortals," with the long -οισι ending you've seen many times now.

This line is a speech-introducer formula: the standard launch-pad for a piece of direct quotation. "He spoke words among the immortals and said…" — and the next line will be the actual speech, with no quotation marks to set it off. Greek doesn't need them; the verb μετηύδα ("he was speaking among") signals that what follows is the speech itself.

Watch for this pattern. Direct speech in Homer almost always opens with one of these set-up lines: someone spoke among, answered, declared. After the formula, you simply hear the character's voice.

ὢ πόποι, οἷον δή νυ θεοὺς βροτοὶ αἰτιόωνται…

And here we go: the first direct speech in the Odyssey. Zeus opens his mouth, and the line is suddenly his voice, not the narrator's.

Ὢ πόποι — an exclamation, untranslatable but full of feeling. "Oh come on!", "Look at this!", "For heaven's sake!" It is Zeus's signature opener for grumbling about mortals.

Οἷον δή νυ θεοὺς βροτοὶ αἰτιόωνται — "how mortals now blame the gods!" The verb αἰτιόωνται ("they blame") ends in -νται, a typical middle/passive plural ending in the present.

Notice the word order: θεούς ("gods") sits at the front, before the subject βροτοί ("mortals"). Why? Emphasis. The gods, of all people, the mortals blame. The mind of Zeus circles around the absurdity of it.

ἐξ ἡμέων γάρ φασι κάκ' ἔμμεναι· οἱ δὲ καὶ αὐτοί…

"For from us, they say, evils come; but they themselves also…"

The complaint takes shape. Ἐξ ἡμέων ("from us") — Zeus speaks in the divine plural. Φασί ("they say") is the present tense of the verb of saying.

Notice what follows. Κάκ' ἔμμεναι — "evils to be (= to come)." An accusative noun (κάκα, "evils") plus an infinitive (ἔμμεναι, "to be," a longer Homeric form of εἶναι from line 15). This combination is one of Greek's standard ways of reporting what someone says: not "they say that evils come," but literally "they say evils to-be-coming." Whenever you see an infinitive after a verb of saying, thinking, or believing, suspect this accusative-and-infinitive pattern. It is everywhere in Greek; once you spot it, the long reports of speech inside Homer's narrative start to assemble themselves.

σφῇσιν ἀτασθαλίῃσιν ὑπὲρ μόρον ἄλγε' ἔχουσιν.

This line is a direct echo worth pausing on.

Look back at line 7. Homer himself, in the proem, said of Odysseus's lost crew: αὐτῶν γὰρ σφετέρῃσιν ἀτασθαλίῃσιν ὄλοντο — "for they perished by their own reckless follies." Now, twenty-seven lines later, here is Zeus, the king of gods, on the topic of mortals in general: σφῇσιν ἀτασθαλίῃσιν … ἄλγε' ἔχουσιν — "by their own reckless follies they have woes." Almost the same phrase. The same diagnosis.

It is a remarkable moment of poetic architecture. Homer's narrator at the proem and Homer's Zeus in the first divine speech agree: mortals bring their own troubles on themselves, beyond what fate ordained (ὑπὲρ μόρον). The poem is announcing one of its central moral claims twice, in two voices, with the same words.

And ἄλγεα ("woes") is the same word as line 4. Three pieces of the proem are now folded into Zeus's first speech: ἄλγεα, ἀτασθαλίῃσιν, κατὰ θυμόν. Listen for echoes.

ὡς καὶ νῦν Αἴγισθος ὑπὲρ μόρον Ἀτρεΐδαο…

"Even as now Aegisthus, beyond fate, the wife of Atreus's son…"

Zeus moves from the general claim to its specific case. Ὑπὲρ μόρον ("beyond fate") repeats from the previous line — the moral keyword.

A Homeric ending to notice. Ἀτρεΐδαο is an of-word, but with a longer ending: -αο. This is one more Homeric long of-form, alongside the -οιο you met on Ἠελίοιο (line 9). Both endings replace what later Greek would write as -ου. Whenever you see -αο on a man's name, treat it as "of X." Same job as -ος on Ποσειδάωνος or -ου on νόστου.

The verb hasn't arrived yet — Homer is keeping you waiting. It comes on the next line.

γῆμ' ἄλοχον μνηστήν, τὸν δ' ἔκτανε νοστήσαντα.

The verbs arrive. Γῆμ' ("he married," aorist of γαμέω). Ἔκτανε ("he slew," aorist of κτείνω). Two crimes in one line.

Ἄλοχον μνηστήν ("wooed wife") is an object-form pair, agreeing. Τὸν ("him" = Agamemnon, the son of Atreus) is the object of ἔκτανε.

And look at the participle νοστήσαντα — "having returned." There is νόστος again. The keyword of the poem. Aegisthus killed Agamemnon νοστήσαντα — "having come home." The homecoming itself, the very thing Odysseus longs for, becomes the moment of death for another hero. Homer is letting the keyword ache.

εἰδὼς αἰπὺν ὄλεθρον, ἐπεὶ πρό οἱ εἴπομεν ἡμεῖς…

Another echo. Αἰπὺν ὄλεθρον — "sheer destruction" — is the same phrase from line 11. There Homer used it of the comrades; here Zeus uses it of Aegisthus. The keyword phrases of the proem keep returning.

Εἰδώς ("knowing") is a perfect participle of an unusual verb whose perfect form means "I know." Don't worry about the technicalities; just note that εἰδώς / οἶδα / οἶδεν (line 53, he knows) are all forms of the same verb, all carrying that in-a-state-of-knowing sense.

Πρό οἱ εἴπομεν ἡμεῖς — "we spoke to him beforehand, we [gods]." Εἴπομεν is aorist first-person plural; the -μεν ending is the standard "we" form. Zeus has shifted into the divine we.

Ἑρμείαν πέμψαντες ἐύσκοπον ἀργεϊφόντην…

"Having sent Hermes, keen-sighted Argeiphontes…"

Πέμψαντες is yet another participle — an aorist one this time, agreeing with the implied we of line 37 ("we, having sent Hermes, told him…").

And here is a new epithet-formula: ἐύσκοπον ἀργεϊφόντην — "keen-sighted Argeiphontes," the messenger god's epic by-name. (Ἀργειφόντης, "slayer of Argus," is one of those resonant Homeric titles whose original story has half-faded — Argus was the hundred-eyed giant Hermes slew in the deep mythological past.) Like δῖα θεάων and ἀντίθεος Ὀδυσσεύς, recognise it as a single chunk. The pair Hermes-Argeiphontes will recur.

μήτ' αὐτὸν κτείνειν μήτε μνάασθαι ἄκοιτιν…

"Neither to slay him nor to woo his wife."

Two infinitives — κτείνειν ("to slay") and μνάασθαι ("to woo") — report what Hermes was told not to do. This is the accusative-and-infinitive pattern again, like line 33 (κάκ' ἔμμεναι): a verb of saying or telling, followed by an infinitive saying what was said.

Μήτ' … μήτε — "neither … nor." The negative counterpart of τε … καί ("both … and") that you met on line 5.

A small etymology to enjoy. Μνάασθαι ("to woo") shares its root with μνηστήρ ("suitor") — the word for the throng of suitors besieging Penelope. (And with μνήμη, "memory." The woo-er is, etymologically, the one who keeps you in mind.)

ἐκ γὰρ Ὀρέσταο τίσις ἔσσεται Ἀτρεΐδαο…

"For from Orestes vengeance shall come for the son of Atreus."

A new tense slips in. Ἔσσεται — "shall be, will come." This is the future, and it has a giveaway shape: Greek's future endings often contain a -σ- in the middle. Ἔσ-σ-εται, πέμψω (line 93, "I will send"), δυνήσεται (line 78, "he will be able") — all futures. When you see a verb form with a -σ- tucked in just before the ending, suspect that the action hasn't happened yet.

The rest of the line should now read on sight. Ἐκ Ὀρέσταο ("from Orestes," of-form with the long Homeric ending) — τίσις ("vengeance," the subject) — Ἀτρεΐδαο ("of/for the son of Atreus").

ὁπποτ' ἂν ἡβήσῃ τε καὶ ἧς ἱμείρεται αἴης. ὣς ἔφαθ' Ἑρμείας, ἀλλ' οὐ φρένας Αἰγίσθοιο πεῖθ' ἀγαθὰ φρονέων· νῦν δ' ἀθρόα πάντ' ἀπέτισεν.

"…when he comes of age and longs for his own land. So spoke Hermes, but he did not persuade the heart of Aegisthus, though intending good; now in full he has paid the price."

Two new verb forms slip into line 41. Ἡβήσῃ ("he may come of age") and ἱμείρεται ("he longs") are both subjunctive forms — a mood used for actions that haven't happened yet, that might happen. "When he comes of age" — Orestes hasn't grown up yet; the timing is hypothetical. Spot subjunctives by their slightly extended endings (-ῃ, -ηται) and by the small particles around them (here ἂν, often ὅταν or ἵνα or ὅπως).

Don't worry about the details now. Just register: subjunctive = the not-yet mood. We'll come back to it.

Ὣς ἔφαθ' ("so spoke he") on line 42 is a speech-closing formula, bookending the speech-opener back on line 31. Homer's direct speeches are nearly always framed by such formulas: speech opens, speech ends. Recognise the pair.

Ἀπέτισεν ("he has paid the price") — aorist — closes the Aegisthus episode. The first divine speech of the poem ends on a moral.

τὸν δ' ἠμείβετ' ἔπειτα θεὰ γλαυκῶπις Ἀθήνη.

A new speech is coming, and the line introducing it is another speech-formula — and a very important one.

Τὸν δ' ἠμείβετ' ἔπειτα — "and him she answered then" — is the standard transition between speeches in Homer. You will see it dozens of times in the Odyssey, with only the name of the speaker changing. Recognise the pattern: τὸν δ' ἠμείβετ' + name. We'll see this exact line repeated on line 80.

And here is the speaker: θεὰ γλαυκῶπις Ἀθήνη — "the goddess flashing-eyed Athena." Three words doing the job of one. Γλαυκῶπις is Athena's signature epithet, from γλαυκός (the colour of the sea, a bright greenish-grey) plus ὤψ (eye) — "flashing-eyed," or perhaps "owl-eyed" (the owl, γλαύξ in Greek, takes its name from the same root, and is Athena's bird). She is everywhere identified by her eyes. Recognise this formula on sight.

ὦ πάτερ ἡμέτερε Κρονίδη, ὕπατε κρειόντων, καὶ λίην κεῖνός γε ἐοικότι κεῖται ὀλέθρῳ· ὣς ἀπόλοιτο καὶ ἄλλος, ὅτις τοιαῦτά γε ῥέζοι.

Athena begins with a cascade of vocatives — being-called-out-to forms. Ὦ πάτερ ("O father"), Κρονίδη ("son of Cronos"), ὕπατε κρειόντων ("highest of lords"). When Greeks address a god, they tend to pile on titles. Note the call-out marker ὦ at the very front, like English "O" in elevated speech.

Line 46 grants Zeus's point: yes, Aegisthus deserved what he got.

Then, in line 47, a new mood arrives: the optative, in the form ἀπόλοιτο ("may he perish") and ῥέζοι ("might do"). The optative is the mood of wishing: "may it be so." It is also the mood of remote hypothesis: "would do, might do." Athena makes a wish — "so may any other perish who does such things." The -οιτο and -οι endings are giveaways.

For now, just hold the contrast in mind: subjunctive = the not-yet; optative = let-it-be, would-be.

ἀλλά μοι ἀμφ' Ὀδυσῆι δαΐφρονι δαίεται ἦτορ, δυσμόρῳ, ὃς δὴ δηθὰ φίλων ἄπο πήματα πάσχει νήσῳ ἐν ἀμφιρύτῃ, ὅθι τ' ὀμφαλὸς ἐστι θαλάσσης…

"But my heart is torn for wise Odysseus, the hapless one, who long has been suffering woes far from his friends, on a sea-girt island, where is the navel of the sea…"

The sentence pivots on ἀλλά — Athena turns from Aegisthus to Odysseus, where her real concern lies.

Ὀδυσῆι δαΐφρονι ("for wise Odysseus") and δυσμόρῳ ("hapless") are all in the everything-else case, matching by ending — a chain of words describing the same man, each agreeing with the next.

A beautiful image: νήσῳ ἐν ἀμφιρύτῃ, ὅθι τ' ὀμφαλὸς ἐστι θαλάσσης — "on a sea-girt isle, where is the navel of the sea." Calypso's island is the ὀμφαλός, the central point — the same word used for the Omphalos stone at Delphi, the centre of the world. Odysseus is stranded at the world's centre. He is at the heart of everything, and cannot leave.

νῆσος δενδρήεσσα, θεὰ δ' ἐν δώματα ναίει, Ἄτλαντος θυγάτηρ ὀλοόφρονος, ὅς τε θαλάσσης πάσης βένθεα οἶδεν, ἔχει δέ τε κίονας αὐτὸς μακράς, αἳ γαῖάν τε καὶ οὐρανὸν ἀμφὶς ἔχουσιν.

The geography turns mythical. A goddess (θεά) dwells on the wooded isle — Ἄτλαντος θυγάτηρ ὀλοόφρονος, "the daughter of evil-minded Atlas" — who knows the depths of every sea, and himself holds the tall pillars that keep earth and heaven apart.

The verb οἶδεν ("he knows") is the perfect of οἶδα you met in line 37 — describing a state. He is in the condition of knowing. Same family as δεδαίαται (line 23) and πεφευγότες (line 12).

The cosmic image is striking. A single Titan holds the pillars that separate sky from earth, keeping the world structurally apart. Calypso, his daughter, is by inheritance a being at the edge of the cosmos. Odysseus is held captive by someone connected to the very architecture of the world.

τοῦ θυγάτηρ δύστηνον ὀδυρόμενον κατερύκει· αἰεὶ δὲ μαλακοῖσι καὶ αἱμυλίοισι λόγοισιν θέλγει, ὅπως Ἰθάκης ἐπιλήσεται…

"His daughter keeps the wretched lamenting man detained; ever with soft and wheedling words she beguiles him, so that he may forget Ithaca…"

Κατερύκει ("detains") shares its root with ἔρυκε from line 14 — same captivity, now in the present tense rather than the imperfect.

Look at the long agreement chain: μαλακοῖσι καὶ αἱμυλίοισι λόγοισιν — "with soft and wheedling words." Three words, all sharing the -οισιν dative-plural ending. The everything-else case doing its with, by means of job. Three words bound by their endings.

Ἰθάκης ἐπιλήσεται — "that he may forget Ithaca." Ἐπιλήσεται is a subjunctive (the not-yet mood). And the of-form on Ἰθάκης shows the same logic as with remembering (line 29): verbs of forgetting take an of-form object. The thing forgotten is held of, partially, not entire.

αὐτὰρ Ὀδυσσεύς, ἱέμενος καὶ καπνὸν ἀποθρῴσκοντα νοῆσαι ἧς γαίης, θανέειν ἱμείρεται· οὐδέ νυ σοί περ ἐντρέπεται φίλον ἦτορ, Ὀλύμπιε; οὐ νύ τ' Ὀδυσσεύς, Ἀργείων παρὰ νηυσὶ χαρίζετο ἱερὰ ῥέζων Τροίῃ ἐν εὐρείῃ; τί νύ οἱ τόσον ὠδύσαο, Ζεῦ;

Athena's complaint is breath-takingly composed: an image of Odysseus straining for one last glimpse of home, followed by two indignant questions to Zeus.

Ἱέμενος on line 58 picks up the same participle from line 6 — Odysseus yearning, the same word again, a circle closing.

A stunning small detail to enjoy: ὠδύσαο on line 62. This verb is ὀδύσσομαι ("to be wrathful at"), and Greek tradition recognised it as the source of Odysseus's name: Ὀδυσσεύς, "the one wroth-against, the much-resented." Athena is making a pun. "Why have you been Odysseused against him, Zeus?" — "why have you been Odysseus-ing him?" The hero's name carries the action of his troubles inside it.

τὴν δ' ἀπαμειβόμενος προσέφη νεφεληγερέτα Ζεύς.

The speech-formula again, with a different verb — προσέφη ("he spoke to her") — and the speaker named with another famous epithet: νεφεληγερέτα Ζεύς — "cloud-gathering Zeus."

Νεφεληγερέτα is a compound: νεφέλη ("cloud") + ἀγείρω ("to gather"). Zeus assembles the clouds; he is the weather-bringer, the storm-maker. The epithet is one of the most recognisable in Homer, and it accompanies Zeus's name across both poems.

Three formulae have now flagged the openings of three speeches: line 31 (Zeus introducing the Aegisthus story), line 44 (Athena answering), now line 63 (Zeus replying). Watch the pattern. Every speech in Homer is announced by such a line.

τέκνον ἐμόν, ποῖόν σε ἔπος φύγεν ἕρκος ὀδόντων. πῶς ἂν ἔπειτ' Ὀδυσῆος ἐγὼ θείοιο λαθοίμην, ὃς περὶ μὲν νόον ἐστὶ βροτῶν, περὶ δ' ἱρὰ θεοῖσιν ἀθανάτοισιν ἔδωκε…

Zeus's reply opens with one of Homer's most quotable formulae: ποῖόν σε ἔπος φύγεν ἕρκος ὀδόντων — "what kind of word has escaped the barrier of your teeth?" The image of the teeth as a fence through which words pass and once out cannot return is striking; the phrase recurs across the Iliad and Odyssey.

Λαθοίμην ("could I forget") is another optative — the same wishing-or-hypothetical mood you met on line 47. Here it's doing the could/would job: how could I forget?

A syntactic doubling: περὶ μὲν νόον … περὶ δ' ἱρά — "beyond [in] wisdom … beyond [in] sacrifices." Yet another μέν … δέ pair, balancing two superlatives about Odysseus. Zeus loves him — but Poseidon's wrath has overridden Olympus.

ἀλλὰ Ποσειδάων γαιήοχος ἀσκελὲς αἰεὶ Κύκλωπος κεχόλωται, ὃν ὀφθαλμοῦ ἀλάωσεν, ἀντίθεον Πολύφημον, ὅου κράτος ἐστὶ μέγιστον πᾶσιν Κυκλώπεσσι.

Zeus explains the real problem. Ἀλλά, the great correcting word, turning to Poseidon.

Γαιήοχος ("earth-holder") is Poseidon's epithet — the Greeks thought of earthquakes as the god shaking the ground he held. Κεχόλωται ("he is enraged") is another perfect — he has fallen into anger and remains in that state. Note the reduplicated κε- at the front, just like δε-δαίαται (line 23).

And here is your recurring epithet-formula again: ἀντίθεος Πολύφημος — "godlike Polyphemus." The same ἀντίθεος attached to Odysseus on line 21 is now attached to the Cyclops, the antagonist. The poem is fond of letting epithets travel between rivals.

Θόωσα δέ μιν τέκε νύμφη, Φόρκυνος θυγάτηρ, ἁλὸς ἀτρυγέτοιο μέδοντος, ἐν σπέσσι γλαφυροῖσι Ποσειδάωνι μιγεῖσα. ἐκ τοῦ δὴ Ὀδυσῆα Ποσειδάων ἐνοσίχθων οὔ τι κατακτείνει, πλάζει δ' ἀπὸ πατρίδος αἴης.

The Cyclops's pedigree: born of Thoosa, daughter of Phorcys (lord of the unresting sea), having lain with Poseidon ἐν σπέσσι γλαφυροῖσι — "in hollow caves."

That phrase is a direct echo of line 15, where Calypso held Odysseus in the same hollow caves. Different cave, different lover, same Homeric formula. The poem rhymes with itself.

And then a key verb returns. Πλάζει ("makes him wander") is from the same root as πλάγχθη — the very first verb of the relative clause, from line 2. Poseidon does not slay Odysseus; he just sends him off course, πλαγ- / πλαζ-, the wandering-verb of the proem now reappearing in Zeus's own mouth. The shape of the whole poem is in this one word.

ἀλλ' ἄγεθ' ἡμεῖς οἵδε περιφραζώμεθα πάντες νόστον, ὅπως ἔλθῃσι. Ποσειδάων δὲ μεθήσει ὃν χόλον· οὐ μὲν γάρ τι δυνήσεται ἀντία πάντων ἀθανάτων ἀέκητι θεῶν ἐριδαίνεμεν οἶος.

Zeus pivots to action. Ἀλλ' ἄγετε — "come now!" Περιφραζώμεθα is a subjunctive (the same form-family as ἡβήσῃ on line 41), here doing the let-us job: "let us all take careful thought."

And there is νόστον once again, in the object form, the keyword of the poem still doing its work. Νόστον περιφραζώμεθα — "let us think about a homecoming." The gods themselves are now wondering how the man can come home.

Μεθήσει ("will let go") and δυνήσεται ("will be able") are both futures (note the -σ- in the middle, as on ἔσσεται line 40). Zeus is making a prediction: Poseidon, however unwilling, will yield. The whole council scene is wrapped up in two future-tense verbs.

τὸν δ' ἠμείβετ' ἔπειτα θεὰ γλαυκῶπις Ἀθήνη.

Stop and look at this line. It is identical to line 44. Word for word.

The speech-formula has returned, unchanged. And him she answered then, the goddess flashing-eyed Athena. You read this on line 44 with several lines of explanation; you should now read it as a single, instantly-recognisable unit. The formula tells you what is about to happen — Athena is about to speak — and then the speech begins.

This is exactly the kind of formulaic repetition that makes Homer's verse possible to compose and to memorise. The same speech-introducer recurs every time the speaker changes. Once you have the formula under your eye, the long stretches of dialogue in the Odyssey become navigable. You read the formula, then settle into the new voice.

ὦ πάτερ ἡμέτερε Κρονίδη, ὕπατε κρειόντων… νοστῆσαι Ὀδυσῆα πολύφρονα ὅνδε δόμονδε, Ἑρμείαν μὲν ἔπειτα διάκτορον ἀργεϊφόντην νῆσον ἐς Ὠγυγίην ὀτρύνομεν, ὄφρα τάχιστα νύμφῃ ἐυπλοκάμῳ εἴπῃ νημερτέα βουλήν, νόστον Ὀδυσσῆος ταλασίφρονος, ὥς κε νέηται…

Athena opens with the same vocative cascade she used on line 45 — ὦ πάτερ … κρειόντων — line for line. The Homeric tongue does not waste invention where formula will do.

Her plan: send Hermes (Ἑρμείαν, accusative object — the messenger-god in his epithet-formula διάκτορον ἀργεϊφόντην) to Ogygia to declare the resolve to Calypso. Ὀτρύνομεν ("let us send") is a subjunctive of exhortation; εἴπῃ ("that he may say") and νέηται ("that he may come home") are subjunctives in that-clauses.

And νόστος keeps cycling. Line 83: νοστῆσαι, infinitive. Line 87: νόστον, accusative. The poem has Athena planning around the very word the proem put into your mouth.

αὐτὰρ ἐγὼν Ἰθάκηνδ' ἐσελεύσομαι, ὄφρα οἱ υἱὸν μᾶλλον ἐποτρύνω καί οἱ μένος ἐν φρεσὶ θείω, εἰς ἀγορὴν καλέσαντα κάρη κομόωντας Ἀχαιοὺς πᾶσι μνηστήρεσσιν ἀπειπέμεν… πέμψω δ' ἐς Σπάρτην τε καὶ ἐς Πύλον ἠμαθόεντα…

Athena announces her own task. Ἐγών — "I, for my part." Ἰθάκηνδ' — "toward Ithaca" — uses the -δε direction-suffix you met on οἴκόνδε (line 17). "Toward Ithaca, toward home."

Ἐσελεύσομαι is a future — "I will go." (Note the -σ- signature.) Her aim: to rouse Telemachus, to put courage in his heart, to send him to the assembly, to denounce the suitors. The verbs ἐποτρύνω, θείω, καλέσαντα, ἀπειπέμεν unfold the whole plot of Book 1 in a single breath.

Πέμψω (line 93) — "I will send" — another future. She has the plan, and the lines pile its futures one on another. Telemachus to Sparta, to Pylos, to seek news of his father.

…νόστον πευσόμενον πατρὸς φίλου, ἤν που ἀκούσῃ, ἠδ' ἵνα μιν κλέος ἐσθλὸν ἐν ἀνθρώποισιν ἔχῃσιν.

The page closes on two of the poem's most resonant words.

Νόστον — again. The keyword's last appearance on this page, in the object form. Telemachus will travel to find news of his father's homecoming. The word has now appeared a handful of times in 95 lines: in five different shapes, in the mouths of the narrator, of Zeus, of Athena. The whole page has been about νόστος.

And the very last lines bring in a new heart-word: κλέος.

Κλέος means "glory, fame" — but more precisely, it means what is heard about you. It comes from the verb κλύω, "to hear." Κλέος is the sound your name makes when others speak of you. (English loud shares the same deep Indo-European root.)

This is the heart-word of Homeric epic. The whole point of heroism is κλέος: that your name continues to be heard long after you are gone. The Iliad and the Odyssey themselves are the mechanism of κλέος — they are the way Achilles and Odysseus continue to be heard, three thousand years on. To recite the poem is to do κλέος to its heroes.

Athena tells us Telemachus is going to win his own κλέος through this journey. The boy who has spent his life in Ithaca will now begin to be heard about.

You have now read ninety-five lines of the Odyssey in Greek. Athena will bind on her sandals, fly down to Ithaca, and meet Telemachus on the next page.