Odyssey: A Daily Odyssey through Homer’s The Odyssey
Aug 14, 2026 · 10 min · 7 segments
From grief comes counsel, sharp and unsparing. Survival, Agamemnon insists, depends not only on courage, but on caution at home. In *The Odyssey*, Book 11, Odysseus answers Agamemnon by tracing…
Landon SolanoHostFor Helen's sake, so many of us perished, and now Clytemnestra hath practiced treason against thee while yet thou wast afar off." Even so I spake, and anon he answered me, saying, "Wherefore do thou, too, never henceforth be soft even to thy wife, neither show her all the counsel that thou knowest, but a part declare and let part be hid.
Verily, we left her a bride new-wed when we went to the war, and a child was at her breast, who now, methinks, sits in the ranks of men, happy in his lot.
For his dear father shall behold him on his coming, and he shall embrace his sire as is meet.
But as for my wife, she suffered me not so much as to have my fill of gazing on my son, ere she slew me, even her lord.
And yet another thing I will tell thee, and do thou ponder it in thy heart.
Put thy ship to land in secret, and not openly, on the shore of thy dear country, for there is no more faith in woman.
But come, declare me this and plainly tell it all, if haply ye hear of my son as yet living, either, it may be, in Orchomenus or sandy Pylos, or perchance with Menelaus in wide Sparta.
For goodly Orestes hath not yet perished on the earth."
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For Helen's sake, so many of us perished, and now Clytemnestra hath practiced treason against thee while yet thou wast afar off." Even so I spake, and anon he answered me, saying, "Wherefore do thou, too, never henceforth be soft even to thy wife, neither show her all the counsel that thou knowest, but a part declare and let part be hid.
Verily, we left her a bride new-wed when we went to the war, and a child was at her breast, who now, methinks, sits in the ranks of men, happy in his lot.
For his dear father shall behold him on his coming, and he shall embrace his sire as is meet.
But as for my wife, she suffered me not so much as to have my fill of gazing on my son, ere she slew me, even her lord.
And yet another thing I will tell thee, and do thou ponder it in thy heart.
Put thy ship to land in secret, and not openly, on the shore of thy dear country, for there is no more faith in woman.
But come, declare me this and plainly tell it all, if haply ye hear of my son as yet living, either, it may be, in Orchomenus or sandy Pylos, or perchance with Menelaus in wide Sparta.
For goodly Orestes hath not yet perished on the earth."
