The Odyssey Quotes

"But now, since you have revealed such overwhelming proof –
the secret sign of our bed, which no one’s ever seen
but you and I and a single handmaid, Actoris,
the servant my father gave me when I came,
who kept the doors of our room you built so well…
you’ve conquered my heart, my hard heart, at last!"

– Homer

The Odyssey, Book 23, lines 253-258. After twenty years of separation and sorrow, the strong love between Penelope and Odysseus wins out in the end. Penelope accepts that Odysseus is her missing husband after he reveals the secret sign of their marriage bed. They are now fully reunited at last.

The more she spoke, the more a deep desire for tears
welled up inside his breast – he wept as he held the wife
he loved, the soul of loyalty, in his arms at last.
Joy, warm as the joy that shipwrecked sailors feel
when they catch sight of land – Poseidon has struck
their well-rigged ship on the open sea with gale winds
and crushing walls of waves, and only a few escape, swimming,
struggling out of the frothing surf to reach the shore,
their bodies crusted with salt but buoyed up with joy
as they plant their feet on solid ground again,
spared a deadly fate. So joyous now to her
the sight of her husband, vivid in her gaze,
that her white arms, embracing his neck
would never for a moment let him go.

– Homer

The Odyssey, Book 23, lines 259-272. There are tears of happiness as Odysseus and Penelope, the very "soul of loyalty," hold each other like they will never let go. The joy of Odysseus’ homecoming and reunion with his wife is compared in a Homeric simile to that of a sailor shipwrecked by Poseidon who manages to swim safely to shore.

"Dear woman…we have still not reached the end
of all our trials. One more labor lies in store –
boundless, laden with danger, great and long,
and I must brave it out from start to finish.
So the ghost of Tiresias prophesied to me,
the day that I went down to the House of Death
to learn our best route home, my comrades’ and my own.
But come, let’s go to bed, dear woman – at long last
delight in sleep, delight in each other, come!"

– Homer

The Odyssey, Book 23, lines 282-290. As Odysseus and Penelope retire to their marriage bed, after his twenty-year absence from it, he tells of one more trial to be endured. He is referring to Tiresias’ prophecy of a sacrifice he must make to Poseidon for the hurt Odysseus caused the sea god’s son Polyphemus.

With a wave of this he stirred and led them on
and the ghosts trailed after with high thin cries
as bats cry in the depths of a dark haunted cavern,
shrilling, flittering, wild when one drops from the chain –
slipped from the rock face, while the rest cling tight…
So with their high thin cries the ghosts flocked now
and Hermes the Healer led them on, and down the dank
moldering paths and past the Ocean’s streams they went
and past the White Rock and the Sun’s Western Gates and past
the Land of Dreams, and they soon reached the fields of asphodel
where the dead, the burnt-out wraiths of mortals, make their home.

– Homer

The Odyssey, Book 24, lines 5-15. With a wave of his gold wand, Hermes leads the souls of the crying suitors into Hades. As well as being the messenger of the gods, Hermes is also the conductor of the dead to the underworld. In an epic simile the cries of anguish of the suitors are compared to the squeals of bats hanging from the roof of a large dark cave.

"If only you had died your death in the full flush
of the glory you had mastered – died on Trojan soil!
Then all united Achaea would have raised your tomb
and you’d have won your son great fame for years to come.
Not so. You were fated to die a wretched death."

– Homer

The Odyssey, Book 24, lines 32-36. Achilles expresses the glorification of heroic combat when he says this to Agamemnon in the underworld. He tells Agamemnon that if only he had died while fighting in Troy, he would have had a much more glorious death. Instead fate marked him out for a "wretched death." This is a reference to King Agamemnon’s murder by his wife Clytemnestra and her lover Aegisthus after he returned from the Trojan war.

"For seventeen days unbroken, days and nights
we mourned you – immortal gods and mortal men.
At the eighteenth dawn we gave you to the flames
and slaughtered around your body droves of fat sheep
and shambling longhorn cattle, and you were burned
in the garments of the gods and laved with soothing oils
and honey running sweet, and a long cortege of Argive heroes
paraded in review, in battle armor round your blazing pyre,
men in chariots, men on foot – a resounding roar went up."

– Homer

The Odyssey, Book 24, lines 68-76. In this passage the ghost of King Agamemnon is recounting to Achilles in the underworld how the great hero was honored in death. Achilles’ funeral was a very big deal, as gods and humans mourned him for seventeen days. For his cremation on the eighteenth, large number of cattle and sheep were slaughtered. The Greek hero was burned in garments from the gods while a cortege of Argive heroes paraded in full armor to honor him.

"Your mother gave us a gold two-handled urn,
a gift from Dionysus, she said,
a masterwork of the famous Smith, the god of fire.
Your white bones rest in that, my brilliant Achilles,
mixed with the bones of dead Patroclus, Menoetius’ son,
apart from those of Antilochus, whom you treasured
more than all other comrades once Patroclus died.
Over your bones we reared a grand, noble tomb –
devoted veterans all, Achaea’s combat forces –
high on its jutting headland over the Hellespont’s
broad reach, a landmark glimpsed from far out at sea
by men of our own day and men of days to come.
And then
your mother, begging the gods for priceless trophies,
set them out in the ring for all our champions.
You in your day have witnessed funeral games
for many heroes, games to honor the death of kings,
when young men cinch their belts, tense to win some prize –
but if you’d laid eyes on these it would have thrilled your heart,
magnificent trophies the goddess, glistening-footed Thetis,
held out in your honor."

– Homer

The Odyssey, Book 24, lines 80-99. In the underworld Agamemnon describes the funeral of Achilles in detail. He tells Achilles’ ghost how the Argives paid him great honor after his death. Achilles’ mother the goddess Thetis provided a gold urn and after burning his corpse his bones were mixed in it with those of Patroclus and Antilochus. Over his bones a great tomb was built, which could be seen from afar and for generations to come.

"The fame of her great virtue will never die.
The immortal gods will lift a song for all mankind,
a glorious song in praise of self-possessed Penelope."

– Homer

The Odyssey, Book 24, lines 216-218. Speaking about Penelope in the underworld, Agamemnon’s ghost has high praise for the faithfulness of the wife of Odysseus. This is after Agamemnon hears about Penelope’s resistence of the suitors and her cunning in frustrating them by weaving a shroud for Laertes and nightly unraveling it. To the loyal Penelope, who chose to wait twenty years for the return of Odysseus and could have taken up with a suitor, Homer attributes the highest honors. She is seen as embodying the ideal wife, the paragon of marital fidelity, a model of self-restraint. Penelope is one of the main heroes of Homer’s epic poem.

"A far cry from the daughter of Tyndareus, Clytemnestra –
what outrage she committed, killing the man she married once! –
yes, and the song men sing of her will ring with loathing.
She brands with a foul name the breed of womankind,
even the honest ones to come!"

– Homer

The Odyssey, Book 24, lines 219-223. Agamemnon’s ghost contrasts the honorable character of Penelope to that of Clytemnestra, who murdered her husband Agamemnon after he returned from the Trojan War. Clytemnestra’s name will always be loathed and is a stain on womanhood, he says. No honor or glory for Agamemnon’s wife!

But he did find
his father, alone, on that well-worked plot,
spading round a sapling – clad in filthy rags,
in a patched, unseemly shirt, and round his shins
he had some oxhide leggings strapped, patched too,
to keep from getting scraped, and gloves on his hands
to fight against the thorns, and on his head
he wore a goatskin skullcap
to cultivate his misery that much more…
Long-enduring Odysseus, catching sight of him now –
a man worn down with years, his heart racked with sorrow –
halted under a branching pear-tree, paused and wept.
Debating, head and heart, what should he do now?
Kiss and embrace his father, pour out the long tale –
how he had made the journey home to native land –
or probe him first and test him every way?

– Homer

The Odyssey, Book 24, lines 248-263. Odysseus sees his father for the first time in two decades. The years have not been good to Laertes. He has aged prematurely and is weighed down with sorrow over his lost son. When Odysseus spots him working in dirty rags in his vineyard, Odysseus halts under a pear tree and weeps for his father. Odysseus wavers between embracing Laertes and telling him of his journey, or testing him first. The idea that Odysseus wants to test his aged father, perhaps to find out if he is still loyal to him, seems a bit harsh.

"You want no skill, old man, at tending a garden.
All’s well-kept here; not one thing in the plot,
no plant, no fig, no pear, no olive, no vine,
not a vegetable, lacks your tender, loving care.
But I must say – and don’t be offended now –
your plants are doing better than yourself.
Enough to be stooped with age
but look how squalid you are, those shabby rags."

– Homer

The Odyssey, Book 24, lines 270-277. Odysseus compliments his father Laertes on the garden, admiring how well kept all of the fruits and vegetables are. However, he remarks on Laertes’ delapidated appearance and says that he is not doing as well as his plants.

"Stranger," his father answered, weeping softly,
"the land you’ve reached is the very one you’re after,
true, but it’s in the grip of reckless, lawless men.
And as for the gifts you showered on your guest,
you gave them all for nothing.
But if you’d found him alive, here in Ithaca,
he would have replied in kind, with gift for gift,
and entertained you warmly before he sent you off.
That’s the old custom, when one has led the way."

– Homer

The Odyssey, Book 24, lines 310-318. Laertes doesn’t recognize the "stranger" as his son Odysseus. He tells him how he has lost faith in Ithaca, since it had come into the grip of the lawless suitors. Laertes’ love of and loyalty to Odysseus come across forcefully when he speaks warmly about his son’s kindness and hospitality to strangers.

"But tell me, please – in no uncertain terms –
how many years ago did you host the man,
that unfortunate guest of yours, my son…
there was a son, or was he all a dream?
That most unlucky man, whom now, I fear,
far from his own soil and those he loves,
the fish have swallowed down on the high seas
or birds and beasts on land have made their meal."

– Homer

The Odyssey, Book 23, lines 319-326. Laertes still does not recognize his son, who has been telling him that he met and befriended Odysseus. A doubting Laertes doesn’t believe that Odysseus is alive and wonders if he ever existed – "there was a son, or was he all a dream." He believes that his son is dead and never returning home. With a twist of irony, what Laertes doesn’t realize, but the reader is fully aware, is that the "stranger" he is saying all this to is his son.

At those words
a black cloud of grief came shrouding over Laertes.
Both hands clawing the ground for dirt and grime,
he poured it over his grizzled head, sobbing, in spasms.
Odysseus’ heart shuddered, a sudden twinge went shooting up
through his nostrils, watching his dear father struggle…
He sprang toward him, kissed him, hugged him.

– Homer

The Odyssey, Book 24, lines 352-358. Odysseus lies to his father Laertes, telling him that he is from Sicily but five years before had befriended Odysseus and hadn’t seen him since. In an act of despair Laertes pours dirt over his head and sobs and shakes. Odysseus feels guilty for prolonging his father’s pain and he finally puts him out of his misery. Revealing himself, Odysseus kisses and embraces Laertes as his son.

"Father – I am your son – myself, the man you’re seeking,
home after twenty years, on native ground at last!
Hold back your tears, your grief.
Let me tell you the news, but we must hurry –
I’ve cut the suitors down in our own house,
I’ve paid them back their outrage, vicious crimes!"

– Homer

The Odyssey, Book 23, lines 359-364. Odysseus finally stops lying about being a stranger from Sicily and reveals his true identity to his father. He tells Laertes that he has punished the suitors for their crimes.

"You – you’re truly my son, Odysseus, home at last?
Give me a sign, some proof – I must be sure."

– Homer

The Odyssey, Book 24, lines 366-367. First Penelope doesn’t believe that Odysseus had returned, now it’s his father Laertes who doesn’t. But it is perhaps understandible that Laertes asks Odysseus for some proof, since he hasn’t seen him for twenty years. It’s only when Odysseus shows his father the scar that he received from a boar as a child that Laertes believes it is truly his son.

"If I’d been young in arms
last night in our house with harness on my back,
standing beside you, fighting off the suitors,
how many I would have cut the knees from under –
the heart inside you would have leapt for joy!"

– Homer

The Odyssey, Book 24, 420-424. Laertes wishes that he had been a young warrior and fought side by side with Odysseus against the suitors. He believes that he would have killed many. Laertes goes on to kill Antinous’ father Eupithes before peace is established in Ithaca, and so plays his part in the fight.

"My friends, what a mortal blow this man has dealt
to all our island people! Those fighters, many and brave,
he led away in his curved ships – he lost the ships
and he lost the men and back he comes again
to kill the best of our Cephallenian princes.
Quick, after him!
…Or we’ll hang our heads forever,
all disgraced, even by generations down the years,
if we don’t punish the murderers of our brothers and our sons!"

– Homer

The Odyssey, Book 24, lines 471-476, 478-480. Eupithes wants revenge for the killing of his son Antinous by Odysseus. He whips up the supporters of the slaughtered suitors to go after Odysseus. If they don’t punish the murderers of their brothers and sons, they will be held in disgrace and dishonor for generations to come, he warns.

"Hear me, men of Ithaca. Not without the hand
of the deathless gods did Odysseus do these things!
Myself, I saw an immortal fighting at his side –
like Mentor to the life. I saw the same god,
now in front of Odysseus, spurring him on,
now stampeding the suitors through the hall,
crazed with fear, and down they went in droves."
Terror gripped them all, their faces ashen white.

– Homer

The Odyssey, Book 24, lines 490-497. Odysseus’ herald Medon addresses the angry families and supporters of the dead suitors. He tells them that he saw a god fighting on the side of Odysseus – it was actually goddess Athena. The crowd stands frozen in terror when they hear this.

"Do as your heart desires –
but let me tell you how it should be done.
Now that royal Odysseus has taken his revenge,
let both sides seal their pacts that he shall reign for life,
and let us purge their memories of the bloody slaughter
of their brothers and their sons. Let them be friends,
devoted as in the old days. Let peace and wealth
come cresting through the land.

– Homer

The Odyssey, Book 24, lines 531-538. Zeus agrees with Athena after she pleads that there should be pacts of peace between the two sides in the war between Odysseus and the suitors. Since Odysseus has taken his revenge, Zeus says that there should be an end to the bloody slaughter.

"Laertes!"
Goddess Athena rushed beside him, eyes ablaze:
"Son of Arcesius, dearest of all my comrades,
say a prayer to the bright-eyed girl and Father Zeus,
then brandish your long spear and wing it fast!"
Athena breathed enormous strength in the old man.
He lifted a prayer to mighty Zeus’s daughter,
brandished his spear a moment, winged it fast
and hit Eupithes, pierced his bronze-sided helmet
that failed to block the bronze point tearing through –
down Eupithes crashed, his armor clanging against his chest.

– Homer

The Odyssey, Book 24, lines 568-578. Athena gives inspiration and strength to Odysseus’ father Laertes to kill Antinous’ father Eurithes with his long spear.
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