Question

Which of the following passages demonstrates the ancient Greek custom of hospitality? “But now the suitors trooped in with all their swagger / and took their seats on low and high-backed chairs. “Greetings, stranger! / Here in our house you’ll find a royal welcome. / Have supper first, then tell us what you need.” “For you, / I have some good advice, if only you will accept it.” “Oh stranger, / ... you’ve counseled me with so much kindness now, / like a father to a son. I won’t forger a word.”

Answer 1

Eating first, then business. So where it says "Have supper first, then tell us what you need.”

Answer 2

The second passage, taken from Homer's poem The Odyssey, demonstrates the ancient Greek custom of proper hospitality, known in Greek as xenia. “Greetings, stranger! Here in our house you’ll find a royal welcome. Have supper first, then tell us what you need," says Telemachus (the son of Odysseus and Penelope) to a disguised Athena, who has visited him at his palace in Ithaca in order to convince him to go with her on a journey in search of his missing father, who has not returned from the Trojan War.