The Odyssey

Lines to Ponder · The Odyssey

Single lines worth sitting with.

1. Line 01

   He wept for his lost home, sitting on the shore of a paradise.

   Book V, paraphrased. Everything the world says you should want, offered permanently, and he sits with his back to it looking at the water. Ask yourself what your own island is.

2. Line 02

   My name is Noman.

   The trick works only because he gives up being someone. Then he shouts his real name across the water and pays for it with ten years and every friend he has. Wanting the credit is what destroys him.

3. Line 03

   I would rather be a paid servant in a poor man's house and be above ground than king of kings among the dead.

   The most famous warrior in Greek myth, given one chance to speak from beyond, spends it telling you glory was not worth it.

4. Line 04

   The dog knew him, and had not the strength to move.

   Book XVII, paraphrased. Argos waited twenty years and was recognised for a few seconds. Every reader gets quieter here, and none of it is said out loud.

5. Line 05

   No man can move that bed, for I built it myself around a living tree.

   Book XXIII, paraphrased. He crosses the world, refuses immortality, kills a hall full of men, and the proof of who he is turns out to be a piece of furniture he made with his hands.

6. Line 06

   Tell me about a complicated man.

   A modern rendering of the first line, and a fair one. The word Homer uses is *polytropos*, of many turns, which can mean widely travelled, resourceful, or shifty. All three readings are defensible. The poem is built on the ambiguity.