The Odyssey Irony Quotes

"All men need the gods…
but the man is younger, just about my age.
That’s why I give the gold cup first to you."
With that
Pisistratus placed in her hand the cup of mellow wine
and Pallas rejoiced at the prince’s sense of tact
in giving the golden winecup first to her.

– Homer

The Odyssey, Book 3, lines 55-57. Pisistratus asks Athena – disguised as Mentor – to say a prayer to Poseidon, since it is the god’s feast day in Pylos. There is a certain irony in asking her to pray to Poseidon, who is punishing Odysseus. For Athena is Odysseus’ patron goddess and is working against Poseidon.

At once she prayed intensely to Poseidon:
"Hear me, Sea-lord, you who embrace the earth –
don’t deny our wishes, bring our prayers to pass!
First, then, to Nestor and all his sons grant glory.
Then to all these Pylians, for their splendid rites
grant a reward that warms their gracious hearts.
And last, Poseidon, grant Telemachus and myself
safe passage home, the mission accomplished
that sped us here in our rapid black ship."

– Homer

The Odyssey, Book 3, lines 61-69. Prompted by Nestor’s son Pisistratus, Athena prays to Poseidon to honor Nestor and his sons. It is ironic that Athena prays to Poseidon. For she is working against the god who is punishing Odysseus, by giving advice to Odysseus’ son Telemachus.

"If only the gods would arm me in such power
I’d take revenge on the lawless, brazen suitors
riding roughshod over me, plotting reckless outrage.
But for me the gods have spun out no such joy,
for my father or myself. I must bear up,
that’s all."

– Homer

The Odyssey, Book 3, lines 233-238. Telemachus wishes that the gods would give him the power of Orestes, who avenged his father’s murder, so he could take his revenge on the shameless suitors. Telemachus believes that the gods have no such plan for his father and himself. We have dramatic irony here, since the reader is in the know about Athena helping Odysseus to return home, where he will be able to deal with the suitors. The passage foreshadows the suitors’ fate.

"If only
the bright-eyed goddess chose to love you just
as she lavished care on brave Odysseus, years ago
in the land of Troy where we Achaeans struggled!
I’ve never seen the immortals show so much affection
as Pallas openly showed him, standing by your father –
if only she’d favor you, tend you with all her heart,
many a suitor then would lose all thought of marriage,
blotted out forever."

– Homer

The Odyssey, Book 3, lines 247-255. Nestor’s words to Telemachus, wishing that Athena loved and helped him as much as she did Odysseus, are ironic. For the reader is aware that the goddess cares very much for Telemachus and his father and is dedicated to helping them both.

"Never, your majesty,"
Telemachus countered gravely, "that will never
come to pass, I know. What you say dumbfounds me,
staggers imagination! Hope, hope as I will,
that day will never dawn…
not even if the gods should will it so."

– Homer

The Odyssey, Book 3, lines 255-260. This is Telemachus’ response to Nestor, who says that if only Athena favored Telemachus as she did his father Odysseus. This is an example of dramatic irony since the reader knows that Telemachus is being guided by Athena, disguised as Mentor, in his search for his father. It also shows Telemachus’ modesty and lack of pride.

"By god, what a fine piece of work he’s carried off!
Telemachus – what insolence – and we thought his little jaunt
would come to grief. But in spite of us all, look,
the young cub slips away, just like that –
picks the best crew in the land and off he sails.
And this is just the start of the trouble he can make."

– Homer

The Odyssey, Book 4, lines 746-751. Antinous, ablaze with anger, says this on learning that Telemachus has caught them unawares by going on a secret voyage to Pylos. Up to now the suitors were not fearful of Telemachus. But now they are nervous, on hearing that Telemachus sailed with a top crew to the land ruled by King Nestor, who fought with Odysseus in the Trojan War. It is rather ironic that one of the suitors should accuse Telemachus of insolence, when they have shown brazen disrespect and insolence towards Odysseus’ family.

With a dark glance
wily Odysseus shot back, "Indecent talk, my friend.
You, you’re a reckless fool – I see that. So,
the gods don’t hand out all their gifts at once,
not build and brains and flowing speech to all.
One man may fail to impress us with his looks
but a god can crown his words with beauty, charm,
and men look on with delight when he speaks out.
Never faltering, filled with winning self-control,
he shines forth at assembly grounds and people gaze
at him like a god when he walks through the streets.
Another man may look like a deathless one on high
but there’s not a bit of grace to crown his words.
Just like you, my fine, handsome friend. Not even
a god could improve those lovely looks of yours
but the mind inside is worthless."

– Homer

The Odyssey, Book 8, lines 190-205. Broadsea’s taunts about Odysseus’ lack of athleticism sparks Odysseus’ ire. The Greek hero’s pride is injured and he gives back as good as he gets. He talks about the power of intellect and eloquence, placing a high value on these. A man with unimpressive looks may be gifted with words, he tells the Phaeacian athlete. The same man can display charm and beauty and self-control, being seen by others as a god (simile), Odysseus says. He tells Broadsea distainfully that while his lovely looks could not be improved upon, his mind inside is worth nothing. When Odysseus remarks that the gods don’t hand out the gifts of build and brains and eloquence to everyone at once, his words are somewhat ironic. For he is one man who embodies all these gifts: he is highly intelligent, athletic, a proven warrior, an excellent leader and physically attractive.

"So, you ask me the name I’m known by, Cyclops?
I will tell you. But you must give me a guest-gift
as you’ve promised. Nobody – that’s my name. Nobody –
so my mother and father call me, all my friends."
But he boomed back at me from his ruthless heart,
"Nobody? I’ll eat Nobody last of all his friends –
I’ll eat the others first! That’s my gift to you!"

– Homer

The Odyssey, Book 9, lines 408-414. Odysseus tells Cyclops that his name is "Nobody." This is an example of Odysseus’ characteristic cunning and trickery, probably the most striking example in The Odyssey. The name forms part of a clever plan that Odysseus uses to escape from the Cyclops’ cave. It is also an example of verbal irony because Odysseus is King of Ithaca and not a nobody.

"Dear old ram, why last of the flock to quit the cave?
In the good old days you’d never lag behind the rest
…Sick at heart for your master’s eye
that coward gouged out with his wicked crew? –
only after he’d stunned my wits with wine –
that, that Nobody…
who’s not escaped his death, I swear, not yet.
Oh if only you thought like me, had words like me
to tell me where that scoundrel is cringing from my rage!"

– Homer

The Odyssey, Book 9, lines 498-499, 505-511. We hear ironic words from the blinded Polyphemus as he speaks to the leader of his flock. He thinks the ram is lagging behind the rest today, because he is sickened over his master’s injuries at the hands of Odysseus. He doesn’t know that crafty Odysseus is clinging to the underneath of the ram making his escape.

Mountain wolves and lions were roaming round the grounds –
she’d bewitched them herself, she gave them magic drugs.
But they wouldn’t attack my men; they just came pawing
up around them, fawning, swishing their long tails –
eager as hounds that fawn around their master,
coming home from a feast,
who always brings back scraps to calm them down.
So they came nuzzling round my men – lions, wolves
with big powerful claws – and the men cringed in fear
at the sight of those strange, ferocious beasts.

– Homer

The Odyssey, Book 10, lines 231-240. An epic simile compares Circe’s bewitched mountain wolves and lions to tame dogs that wag their tails and fawn on their master when he brings them scraps of food. From what we discover later about sorceress Circe, we can assume the tame mountain lions and wolves are men transformed into animals. This is an example of situational irony, as the characters and reader don’t know about Circe’s ability to turn men into animals with magic potions. This demonstration of Circe’s magic, transforming vicious predators into docile pets, inspires fear in Odysseus’ men.

But look, the ghost
of my mother came! My mother, dead and gone now…
Anticleia – daughter of that great heart Autolycus –
whom I had left alive when I sailed for sacred Troy.
I broke into tears to see her here, but filled with pity,
even throbbing with grief, I would not let her ghost
approach the blood till I had questioned Tiresias myself.

– Homer

The Odyssey, Book 11, lines 93-99. These lines describe Odysseus’ only encounter with his mother, when he sees her ghost in the House of Death. It is a painful moment for him, realizing that he will never see her again, and it reduces him to tears. This is an example of situational irony, because both Odysseus and the reader didn’t know that Anticleia was dead.

"Ah Odysseus," Alcinous replied, "one look at you
and we know that you are no one who would cheat us –
no fraud, such as the dark soil breeds and spreads
across the face of the earth these days. Crowds of vagabonds
frame their lies so tightly none can test them. But you,
what grace you give your words, and what good sense within!
You have told your story with all a singer’s skill,
the miseries you endured, your great Achaeans too."

– Homer

The Odyssey, Book 11, lines 411-418. Alcinous is impressed by Odysseus’ storytelling skills, after he regales the Phaeacians with his tales from the underworld and the characters he meets on his journey there. The king has high praise for Odysseus’ honesty. But his words about Odysseus being "no fraud" must sound ironic to the reader. For we know that Odysseus sometimes invents false stories to test people or get the better of them. However, in this instance, he happens to be telling the truth.

"Atop it a great fig-tree rises, shaggy with leaves,
beneath it awesome Charybdis gulps the dark water down.
Three times a day she vomits it up, three times she gulps it down,
that terror! Don’t be there when the whirlpool swallows down –
not even the earthquake god could save you from disaster."

– Homer

The Odyssey, Book 12, lines 114-118. Odysseus will pass by the fearsome Charybdis on his voyage home to Ithaca, Circe prophesies. She describes the giant whirlpool, warning him to stay clear of this powerful female monster. She says with some irony that if Odysseus’ ship is swallowed by Charybdis, not even the mighty Poseidon will be able to save him. Considering how much Odysseus has angered the sea god, there is little chance that he would ever help him.

"Come closer, famous Odysseus – Achaea’s pride and glory –
moor your ship on our coast so you can hear our song!
Never has any sailor passed our shores in his black craft
until he has heard the honeyed voices pouring from our lips,
and once he hears to his heart’s content sails on, a wiser man.
We know all the pains that the Greeks and Trojans once endured
on the spreading plain of Troy when the gods willed it so –
all that comes to pass on the fertile earth, we know it all!"

– Homer

The Odyssey, Book 12, lines 200-207. As Odysseus’ ship races past the Sirens, Homer describes how the hypnotic but deadly women of the sea burst into their irresistible song. In their bid to tempt Odysseus, the Sirens feed into his ego and pride, referring to his fame and how he is the pride and glory of his people. A metaphor compares their voices to the pouring of sweet honey. The Sirens ask him to moor his ship on their coast, promising that he will sail away a wiser man. This is an example of irony, since the readers knows that the Sirens mean the opposite of what they say, they use their hypnotic feminine voices to lure sailors to their deaths on their rocky shores.

"But I do know this: you were kind to me in the war years,
so long as we men of Achaea soldiered on at Troy.
But once we’d sacked King Priam’s craggy city,
boarded ship, and a god dispersed the fleet,
from then on, daughter of Zeus, I never saw you,
never glimpsed you striding along my decks
to ward off some disaster."

– Homer

The Odyssey, Book 13, lines 357-363. Odysseus complains that he has not seen Athena since the Trojan war, and believes that she abandoned him. Here we have dramatic irony, because the reader knows that during his journey back from Troy Athena helped him a number of times. She petitioned Zeus to free him from Calypso’s island and allow him home. She helped save him when the raft he escaped the island in is wrecked by Poseidon. She ensured that he was received more favorably by the Phaeanians by making him bigger and stronger.

Athena stroked Odysseus with her wand.
She shriveled the supple skin on his lithe limbs,
stripped the russet curls from his head, covered his body
top to toe with the wrinkled hide of an old man
and dimmed the fire in his eyes, so shining once.
She turned his shirt and cloak into squalid rags,
ripped and filthy, smeared with grime and soot.
She flung over this the long pelt of a bounding deer,
rubbed bare, and gave him a staff and beggar’s sack,
torn and tattered, slung from a fraying rope.

– Homer

The Odyssey, Book 13, lines 492-501. Athena disguises Odysseus to look like a wrinkled old beggar before he goes to meet the swineherd. There is an irony in the fact that the King of Ithaca returns to his kingdom as a poor and shriveled beggar.

"As if the gods
had never given me blows and groans aplenty…
Here I sit, my heart aching, broken for him,
my master, my great king – fattening up
his own hogs for other men to eat, while he,
starving for food, I wager, wanders the earth,
a beggar adrift in strangers’ cities, foreign-speaking lands,
if he’s still alive, that is, still sees the rising sun."

– Homer

The Odyssey, Book 14, lines 42-49. When Odysseus-the-beggar seeks hospitality from Eumaeus, the swineherd speaks of his broken heart for his missing master. Less concerned for his own suffering, he is more worried about the trials of his starving master wandering the earth, if indeed he is still alive. The portrayal of the theme of loyalty through the character of Eumaeus is an important part of The Odyssey story. There is dramatic irony here, since Eumaeus doesn’t realize that he is speaking to his master, but the reader does.

"The gods, they must have blocked his journey home.
He’d have treated me well, he would, with a house,
a plot of land and a wife you’d gladly prize.
Goods that a kind lord will give a household hand
who labors for him, hard, whose work the gods have sped,
just as they speed the work I labor at all day.
My master, I tell you, would have repaid me well
if he’d grown old right here. But now he’s dead."

– Homer

The Odyssey, Book 14, lines 71-78. Eumaeus believes that his master would have generously rewarded his loyalty had the gods not blocked his journey home. This passage represents a literary device known as irony. For Odysseus’ journey home was not blocked, he is sitting in Eumaeus’ home disguised as a beggar.

"But one part’s off the mark, I know – you’ll never persuade me –
what you say about Odysseus. A man in your condition,
who are you, I ask you, to lie for no good reason?
Well I know the truth of my good lord’s return,
how the gods detested him, with a vengeance –
never letting him go under, fighting Trojans,
or die in the arms of loved ones."

– Homer

The Odyssey, Book 14, lines 411-417. It is ironic that Eumaeus doesn’t believe the one thing that’s true in Odysseus-the-beggar’s concocted tale – that Odysseus will return to Ithaca. He accuses the beggar of lying about this.

Straight to the prince he rushed
and kissed his face and kissed his shining eyes,
both hands, as the tears rolled down his cheeks.
As a father, brimming with love, welcomes home
his darling only son in a warm embrace –
what pain he’s borne for him and him alone! –
home now, in the tenth year from far abroad,
so the loyal swineherd hugged the beaming prince.

– Homer

The Odyssey, Book 16, lines 16-23. This passage describes the emotional reunion between Eumaeus and Odysseus’ son Telemachus. An epic simile compares the meeting in the doorway of the swineherd’s hut to a father welcoming home his son after a ten-year absence abroad. The comparison is ironic because Telemachus’ real father, the disguised Odysseus, is standing watching and he is the one who has been gone for many years.

"Friends, what a fine piece of work he’s carried off!
Telemachus – what insolence – and we thought his little jaunt
would come to grief! Up now, launch a black ship,
the best we can find – muster a crew of oarsmen,
row the news to our friends in ambush, fast,
bring them back at once."

– Homer

The Odyssey, Book 16, lines 382-387. Eurymachus makes this speech on learning that Telemachus has twarted the murderous suitors and made it safely home to Ithaca. Telemachus has succeeded in avoiding the ambush set up by the suitors and this has surprised and shaken them. Eurymachus issues a call to bring back the plotters who are waiting to ambush Telemachus. This is an example of situational irony, because what happens is the opposite of what people expected.

"Look!" he sneered, "one scum nosing another scum along,
dirt finds dirt by the will of the gods, it never fails!
Wretched pig-boy, where do you take your filthy swine,
this sickening beggar who licks the pots at feasts?
Hanging round the doorposts, rubbing his back,
scavenging after scraps,
no hero’s swords and cauldrons, not for him.
Hand him over to me – I’ll teach him to work a farm,
muck out my stalls, pitch feed to the young goats,
whey to drink will put some muscle on his hams!
Oh no, he’s learned his lazy ways too well,
he’s got no itch to stick to good hard work,
he’d rather go scrounging round the countryside,
begging for crusts to stuff his greedy gut!
Let me tell you – so help me it’s the truth –
if he sets foot in King Odysseus’ royal palace,
salvos of footstools flung at his head by all the lords
will crack his ribs as he runs the line of fire through the house!"

– Homer

The Odyssey, Book 17, lines 236-253. As Odysseus-the-beggar and Eumaeus walk into town, Odysseus’ disloyal goatherd Melanthius, who serves and cooks for the suitors, hurls insults at them. Melanthius is the antithesus of loyal swineherd Eumaeus. He berates Eumaeus for keeping company with a sickening beggar who licks pots at feasts and scavenges after scraps. No hero’s sword or cauldron for this man, he says with heavy irony. Melanthius doesn’t realize that he is speaking of the famous warrior Odysseus who has received many gifts and carried a hero’s sword. It is Melanthius, a man of little means and servant, who will never receive a sword or cauldron. There is also irony in the goatherd accusing Odysseus-the-beggar of having a "greedy gut." For the ones most guilty of greed are those that Melanthius serves – the suitors!

"O nymphs of the fountain, daughters of Zeus –
if Odysseus ever burned you the long thighs
of lambs or kids, covered with rich fat,
now bring my prayer to pass!
Let that man come back – some god guide him now!
He’d toss to the winds the flashy show you make,
Melanthius, so cocksure – always strutting round the town
while worthless fieldhands leave your flocks a shambles!"

– Homer

The Odyssey, Book 17, lines 263-270. In a prayer for divine help, Eumaeus appeals to the fountain nymphs for Odysseus to return. He says that Odysseus would throw to the winds the cocksure Melanthius. The goatherd has been insulting Odysseus-the-beggar and also kicks him as he walks. This passage contains dramatic irony, because Eumaeus doesn’t know that the beggar he is with is Odysseus.

"Your highness, swineherd – why drag this to town?
Haven’t we got our share of vagabonds to deal with,
disgusting beggars who lick the feasters’ plates?
Isn’t it quite enough, these swarming crowds
consuming your master’s bounty –
must you invite this rascal in the bargain?"

– Homer

The Odyssey, Book 17, lines 411-416. Suitor Antinous’ sarcastic remarks to Eumaeus and the beggar when they enter the banquet hall contain three kinds of irony. There is dramatic irony because the "beggar" that Antinous says licks the feasters’ plates is not a beggar but Odysseus, owner of the house where Antious continues to stay and consume Odysseus’ food. Antinous addressing Eumaeus as "your highness" is verbal irony, since he means the opposite and is being mocking. There is also situational irony, because Odysseus will stay in the palace for the night as a guest.
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