The Odyssey Eumaeus Quotes

So up from the haven now Odysseus climbed a rugged path
through timber along high ground – Athena had shown the way –
to reach the swineherd’s place, that fine loyal man
who of all the household hands Odysseus ever had
cared the most for his master’s worldly goods.

– Homer

The Odyssey, Book 14, lines 1-5. Book 14 is titled "The Loyal Swineherd" and this passage tells us how well the faithful Eumaeus takes care of his master Odysseus’ property while he is away. The swineherd is one of the epic poem’s most loyal characters.

"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.
Odysseus and Eumaeus

And you replied, Eumaeus, loyal swineherd,
"It’s wrong, my friend, to send any stranger packing –
even one who arrives in worse shape than you.
Every stranger and beggar comes from Zeus
and whatever scrap they get from the likes of us,
they’ll find it welcome."

– Homer

The Odyssey, Book 14, lines 63-68. Hospitality is one of the main themes in The Odyssey and Eumaeus extends an enthusiastic welcome to the beggar Odysseus, saying that all beggars and strangers come from Zeus. Loyalty is another important theme mentioned in this passage. Throughout Book 14, Eumaeus is addressed in the second person – "you" – and described as the "loyal swineherd." This emphasizes the special bond of friendship between Odysseus and Eumaeus. It also reflects Homer’s admiration for the swineherd’s staunch loyalty and the poet’s love for the man.

"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.

"It’s all we slaves have got,
scrawny pork, while the suitors eat the fatted hogs –
no fear of the gods in their hard hearts, no mercy!
Trust me, the blessed gods have no love for crime.
They honor justice, honor the decent acts of men.
Even cutthroat bandits who raid foreign parts –
and Zeus grants them a healthy share of plunder,
ships filled to the brim, and back they head for home –
even their dark hearts are stalked by the dread of vengeance."

– Homer

The Odyssey, Book 14, lines 93-101. Eumaeus criticizes the suitors for eating the fatted hogs, leaving the servants only the scrawniest meat. But he tells Odysseus-the-beggar that divine retribution is coming, because the gods honor good and the suitors have behaved badly.

"No, at their royal ease they devour all his goods,
those brazen rascals never spare a scrap!
Not a day or a night goes by, sent down by Zeus,
but they butcher victims, never stopping at one or two,
and drain his wine as if there’s no tomorrow –
swilling the last drop."

– Homer

The Odyssey, Book 14, lines 105-110. Eumaeus tells Odysseus of the greed of the suitors. They are literally eating the king’s family out of house and home, butchering the animals wholesale and drinking all the wine.

"Never another master kind as he!
I’ll never find one – no matter where I go,
not even if I went back to mother and father,
the house where I was born and my parents reared me once.
Ah, but much as I grieve for them, much as I long
to lay my eyes on them, set foot on the old soil,
it’s longing for him, him that wrings my heart –
Odysseus, lost and gone!
I can scarcely bear to say his name aloud,
so deeply he loved me, cared for me, so deeply.
Worlds away as he is, I call him Master, Brother!"

– Homer

The Odyssey, Book 14, lines 161-172. Eumaeus talks about how much he misses his king, portraying him as kind and loving. Despite the fact that he is "lost and gone," the loyal Eumaeus still considers him to be his lord and master.

"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.

"So you, old misery, seeing a god has led you here to me,
don’t try to charm me now, don’t spellbind me with lies!
Never for that will I respect you, treat you kindly;
no, it’s my fear of Zeus, the god of guests,
and because I pity you."

– Homer

The Odyssey, Book 14, lines 437-441. Eumaeus tells the stranger that his hospitality to him is out of fear of Zeus, who commands that guests be treated well. But Eumaeus says that he does not believe the false tales his guest has told about Odysseus.

The swineherd, standing up
to share the meat – his sense of fairness perfect –
carved it all out into seven equal portions.
One he set aside, lifting up a prayer
to the forest nymphs and Hermes, Maia’s son,
and the rest he handed on to each man in turn.
But to Odysseus he presented the boar’s long loin
and the cut of honor cheered his master’s heart.

– Homer

The Odyssey, Book 14, lines 490-497. Eumaeus honors his guest as if he were a king, which of course Odysseus is. He gives Odysseus the choicest cut of meat, the loin from the boar.

So here
Odysseus slept and the young hands slept beside him.
Not the swineherd. Not his style to bed indoors,
apart from his pigs. He geared up to go outside
and it warmed Odysseus’ heart,
Eumaeus cared so much for his absent master’s goods.
First, over his broad shoulders he slung a whetted sword,
wrapped himself in a cloak stitched tight to block the wind,
and adding a cape, the pelt of a shaggy well-fed goat,
he took a good sharp lance to fight off men and dogs.
Then out he went to sleep where his white-tusked boars
had settled down for the night…just under
a jutting crag that broke the North Wind’s blast.

– Homer

The Odyssey, Book 14, lines 590-602. After providing his guest Odysseus with a comfortable bed indoors, Eumaeus sleeps outside with the pigs. Armed with a sword and lance, the loyal swineherd beds down outdoors to protect his "absent" master’s animals.

"But you – you make your way to the swineherd first,
in charge of your pigs, and true to you as always.
Sleep the night there, send him to town at once
to tell the news to your mother, wise Penelope –
you’ve made it back from Pylos safe and sound."

– Homer

The Odyssey, Book 15, lines 44-48. Athena advises Telemachus that when he arrives in Ithaca he must first visit the swineherd Eumaeus, sending him to town to inform his mother that he has made it home safely from Pylos. The goddess assures him that loyal Eumaeus can be trusted – "as true to you as always."

"No, stay here. No one finds you a burden,
surely not I, nor any comrade here.
You wait till Odysseus’ dear son comes back –
that boy will deck you out in a cloak and shirt
and send you off, wherever your heart desires."

– Homer

The Odyssey, Book 15, lines 373-377. The passage demonstrates both Eumaeus’ hospitality and Odysseus’ cunning. After Odysseus tests the swineherd by offering to go to the suitors in the palace and ask for hospitality there, Eumaeus stops him and asks him to stay. Eumaeus passes Odysseus’ test.

"Laertes is still alive, but night and day
he prays to Zeus, waiting there in his house,
for the life breath to slip away and leave his body.
His heart’s so racked for his son, lost and gone these years,
for his wife so fine, so wise – her death is the worst blow
he’s had to suffer – it made him old before his time.
She died of grief for her boy, her glorious boy,
it wore her down, a wretched way to go."

– Homer

The Odyssey, Book 15, lines 393-400. Eumaeus tells Odysseus about Laertes’ heartache over his lost son, he just stays in his house waiting to die. More shockingly the swineherd reveals the toll on Odysseus’ mother. Anticleia missed her son so much that she died of a broken heart, Eumaeus announces.

Hunger never attacks the land, no sickness either,
that always stalks the lives of us poor men.
No, as each generation grows old on the island,
down Apollo comes with his silver bow, with Artemis,
and they shoot them all to death with gentle arrows.

– Homer

The Odyssey, Book 15, lines 457-461. Eumaeus begins his own story of how he was born into royalty on the idyllic island of Syrie. There is no hunger or sickness there and people just grow old and die a gentle death at the hands of god of archery Apollo and goddess of the hunt Artemis.
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