fig. 2.29.1: every odyssey host offers the gift after the meal and the question; the cyclops sells his for the name; priam’s ransom comes before the meal

A distance is the difference of two line numbers in the Perseus text, so it counts the edition’s verses. Menelaus promises at 4.589 and hands the bowl over at 15.113, 5,855 lines after the meal. The word for the guest-gift (ξεινήιον, ξείνιον) stands on 16 lines of the Odyssey: 5 are the meal itself, 3 are Odysseus asking the Cyclops for one, 5 are a death or a blow called a gift, and 3 are things handed over. In the Iliad it stands on 6. The gift word δῶρον is on 58 and 68 lines; ransom, ἄποινα, on 0 and 27. Translations are the author’s.