The Odyssey Melanthios Quotes

Melanthios

Quote 1

[Melanthios] recklessly lashed out with his heel to the hip, but failed to knock him out of the pathway, for Odysseus stood it, unshaken, while he pondered within him whether to go for him with his cudgel, and take the life from him or pick him up like a jug and break his head on the ground. Yet still he stood it, and kept it all inside him. (17.233-238)

Odysseus controls his raging dignity. He takes offense at being touched so offensively by a lonely goatherd, but reins in his pride long enough to keep his crucial secret.