All 9 Uses
ancient Sparta
in
The Odyssey, by Homer - (translated by: Butler)
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- In the meantime I will go to Ithaca, to put heart into Ulysses' son Telemachus; I will embolden him to call the Achaeans in assembly, and speak out to the suitors of his mother Penelope, who persist in eating up any number of his sheep and oxen; I will also conduct him to Sparta and to Pylos, to see if he can hear anything about the return of his dear father—for this will make people speak well of him.†
Book 1Sparta = ancient Greek city famous for military prowess
- First go to Pylos and ask Nestor; thence go on to Sparta and visit Menelaus, for he got home last of all the Achaeans; if you hear that your father is alive and on his way home, you can put up with the waste these suitors will make for yet another twelve months.†
Book 1
- Give me, then, a ship and a crew of twenty men to take me hither and thither, and I will go to Sparta and to Pylos in quest of my father who has so long been missing.†
Book 2
- "Telemachus," said one youngster, "means to be the death of us; I suppose he thinks he can bring friends to help him from Pylos, or again from Sparta, where he seems bent on going.†
Book 2
- I am going to Sparta and to Pylos to see if I can hear anything about the return of my dear father.†
Book 2
- For his only son he had found a bride from Sparta, (endnote 37) the daughter of Alector.†
Book 4
- Is he in Orchomenus, or at Pylos, or is he at Sparta with Menelaus—for I presume that he is still living.'†
Book 11
- Stay with him and find out how things are going, while I proceed to Sparta and see your son, who is with Menelaus at Lacedaemon, where he has gone to try and find out whether you are still alive.†
Book 13
- Endnote 37: Sparta and Lacedaemon are here treated as two different places, though in other parts of the poem it is clear that the writer understands them as one.†
Book Foot *
Definitions:
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(1)
(ancient Sparta) an ancient Greek city famous for military prowess; the dominant city of the Peloponnesus prior to the 4th century BC
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(2)
(meaning too rare to warrant focus) Less commonly, Sparta can refer to the modern town in Greece that is in the same location, or to any number or American cities with the same name. Similarly, many sports teams are called Spartans.