The Odyssey · Samuel Butler translation

Note 10
BOOK I

[ cf. “Il.” vi. 490-495. In the “Iliad” it is “war,” not “speech,” that is a man’s matter. It argues a certain hardness, or at any rate dislike of the “Iliad” on the part of the writer of the “Odyssey,” that she should have adopted Hector’s farewell to Andromache here, as elsewhere in the poem, for a scene of such inferior pathos.]

ITS PLACE IN THE BOOK

…hin the house and busy yourself with your daily duties, your loom, your distaff, and the ordering of your servants; for speech is man’s matter, and mine above all others [10]—for it is I who am master here.”

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