|192 ὄλβιε Λαέρταο πάϊ, πολυμήχαν’ Ὀδυσσεῦ, |193 ἦ ἄρα σὺν μεγάλῃ ἀρετῇ ἐκτήσω ἄκοιτιν· |194 ὡς ἀγαθαὶ φρένες ἦσαν ἀμύμονι Πηνελοπείῃ, |195 κούρῃ Ἰκαρίου, ὡς εὖ μέμνητ’ Ὀδυσῆος, |196 ἀνδρὸς κουριδίου. τῶ οἱ κλέος οὔ ποτ’ ὀλεῖται |197 ἧς ἀρετῆς, τεύξουσι δ’ ἐπιχθονίοισιν ἀοιδὴν |198 ἀθάνατοι χαρίεσσαν ἐχέφρονι Πηνελοπείῃ, |199 οὐχ ὡς Τυνδαρέου κούρη κακὰ μήσατο ἔργα, |200 κουρίδιον κτείνασα πόσιν, στυγερὴ δέ τ’ ἀοιδὴ |201 ἔσσετ’ ἐπ’ ἀνθρώπους, χαλεπὴν δέ τε φῆμιν ὀπάσσει |202 θηλυτέρῃσι γυναιξί, καὶ ἥ κ’ εὐεργὸς ἔῃσιν.
|192 O blessed [olbios] son of Laertes, Odysseus of many wiles, |193 it is truly with great merit [aretē] that you got to have your wife. |194 For the thinking [phrenes] of faultless Penelope was sound: |195 she, daughter of Ikarios, kept Odysseus well in mind, |196 that properly-wedded [kouridios] husband of hers. Thus the glory [kleos] will never perish for him, |197 the glory that comes from his merit [aretē], and a song will be created for earthbound humans |198 by the immortals—a song that brings beautiful and pleasurable recompense for sensible Penelope |199 —unlike the daughter of Tyndareos [= Clytemnestra], who masterminded evil deeds, |200 killing her properly-wedded [kouridios] husband, and a hateful subject of song |201 she will be throughout all humankind, and she will give a harsh reputation |202 to women, female [thēluterai] that they are—even for the kind of woman who does noble things.
Notes on the translation
In the original Greek wording, the prepositional phrase meaning ‘with great merit’ at O.24.193 cannot “modify” a noun, and so we cannot translate this wording as ‘you got to have a wife with great merit’, in the sense of ‘you got to have a wife who has great merit’; rather, the phrase modifies the verb ‘you got’. At O.24.197, I translate ‘his merit’, not ‘her merit’, interpreting this instance of aretē ‘merit’ at verse 197 as referring to the previous instance, at verse 193. At O.24.198, the epithet for aoidē ‘song’ is khariessa ‘having kharis’, and I interpret the concept of kharis as ‘beautiful and pleasurable recompense’ in this context. On kharis as a word that conveys both beauty and pleasure, see HC 2§33. At O.24.202, thēluterai means not ‘more female’ but rather ‘female—as opposed to male’.
Further commentary at BA 36–38.
(What follows is an epitome of H24H 11§23, §§26–27.) The word olbios that we see being used here in the first verse seems at first ambivalent: we cannot be sure whether it means ‘fortunate’ or ‘blessed’. While a hero like Odysseus is still alive, it is dangerous for him to be described as olbios in the sense of ‘blessed’. A negative example of what can happen is the case of the hero Priam. Most telling are the words that Achilles addresses to him at I.24.543: ‘I hear that you, old man, were once upon a time olbios’ (καὶ σὲ γέρον τὸ πρὶν μὲν ἀκούομεν ὄλβιον εἶναι). When Achilles is saying this to Priam, the old man is experiencing the worst moments of his life. During those moments, he is neither fortunate nor blessed. Only after death could Priam ever become truly olbios. In the case of Odysseus, however, the Odyssey shows that this Homeric hero is ultimately not only fortunate but also blessed, and so the epithet olbios will in fact ultimately apply to him.
As we see here in O.24.192–202, Odysseus owes his successful homecoming to the faithfulness of his wife Penelope, who deserves only praise, O.24.193–198. And it is in this context of success that Agamemnon addresses Odysseus as olbios, ‘blessed’, O.24.192. By contrast, Agamemnon blames his own wife Clytemnestra for sabotaging his own ‘homecoming’ or nostos, O.24.096. Agamemnon contrasts his loss of ‘homecoming’ or nostos with the poetic ‘glory’ or kleos that Achilles will keep forever, O.24.094. But now, in O.24.192–202, we see that Agamemnon makes another basic contrast—between himself and Odysseus. What caused Agamemnon to lose his own kleos—and his own nostos—was the fact that his wife was Clytemnestra, who was unfaithful to him and who contrived his murder, O.24.199-202. By contrast, the faithfulness of Penelope to Odysseus helped that hero secure his own kleos, O.24.196, in the context of O.24.196–198. To add to the irony, Agamemnon’s words describe his violent death as lugros, ‘disastrous’, O.24.096, and his wife Clytemnestra as oulomenē, ‘disastrous’, O.24.097. Both of these epithets, as we have seen earlier, are words that evoke the poetry of epic: lugros, ‘disastrous’, is the epithet of both the nostos or ‘song about homecoming’ that Phemios sings in O.01.327 and of the nostos that Nestor narrates in O.03.132, while oulomenē, ‘disastrous’, is the epithet of the anger of Achilles in I.01.002.