"Stranger, how would you like to work for me
if I took you on – I’d give you decent wages –
picking the stones to lay a tight dry wall
or planting tall trees on the edge of my estate?
I’d give you rations to last you year-round,
clothes for your body, sandals for your feet.
Oh no! You’ve learned your lazy ways too well,
you’ve got no itch to stick to good hard work,
you’d rather go scrounging round the countryside,
begging for crusts to stuff your greedy gut!"
– Homer
The Odyssey, Book 18, lines 404-413. The suitor Eurymachus asks Odysseus to become a laborer on his farm, and to add insult to injury, accuses him of being lazy and afraid of hard work. He takes Odysseus to task for scrounging off people to fill his greedy stomach. The irony is that it is Eurymachus and his fellow suitors who are the greedy ones scrounging off Odysseus’ estate. Eurymachus’ insults are inspired by goddess Athena, who wants to make Odysseus even more angry at the suitors.