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[71] εἰ μή πού τι = nisi forte. Telemachus argues as follows: Citizens of Ithaca, my sorrow for my father no one can cure, yet let me indulge that sorrow in peace and quiet, without the vexatious presence of these suitors (“ἐάσατέ μ᾽ οἶον”). I can only think that my father must have done some cruelty to the Greeks, though that would not be like him (“ἐσθλὸς Ὀδυσσεύς”); and that you are making a return of this cruelty to me (“δυσμενέοντες”). It will not do to say that you have nothing to do with my present distress, for you are verily guilty of it by your encouragement of these suitors, (“τούτους ὀτρύνοντες”); indeed, you do me more harm by your acquiescence in their acts than you would by pillaging me yourselves; ‘better were it for me that you [rather than they] should eat my stock and store. If you were to consume it, it would not be long ere amends should be made, for we would constantly accost you in every street of the town with our demands, asking back our possession, till the whole had been restored.’ But as it is I am more or less helpless (“ἀπρήκτους ὀδύνας”) since I have no direct claim on you.

Homer's Odyssey. W. Walter Merry. James Riddell. D. B. Monro. Oxford. Clarendon Press. 1886-1901.

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