Laudator Temporis Acti

Homer, Odyssey 14.211-221 (Odysseus in disguise, telling one of his tall tales; tr. George Herbert Palmer, slightly modified):

Nevertheless, I took to wife the daughter of a wealthy house,
winning her by my merit; because I was no weakling
and not afraid of war. Now all is gone.
Yet still, when you see stubble I think you know the grain;
hardships innumerable have pressed me sore.
In those days Ares and Athene gave me courage,
and strength to break the line; and when I picked for an ambush
our bravest, sowing the seeds of evil for our foes,
my swelling heart cast not a look on death;
but charging ever foremost, I would catch upon my spear
whatever foeman showed less speed than I.

ἠγαγόμην δὲ γυναῖκα πολυκλήρων ἀνθρώπων
εἵνεκ᾽ ἐμῆς ἀρετῆς, ἐπεὶ οὐκ ἀποφώλιος ἦα
οὐδὲ φυγοπτόλεμος· νῦν δ᾽ ἤδη πάντα λέλοιπεν·
ἀλλ᾽ ἔμπης καλάμην γέ σ᾽ ὀΐομαι εἰσορόωντα
γιγνώσκειν· ἦ γάρ με δύη ἔχει ἤλιθα πολλή.        215
ἦ μὲν δὴ θάρσος μοι Ἄρης τ᾽ ἔδοσαν καὶ Ἀθήνη
καὶ ῥηξηνορίην· ὁπότε κρίνοιμι λόχονδε
ἄνδρας ἀριστῆας, κακὰ δυσμενέεσσι φυτεύων,
οὔ ποτέ μοι θάνατον προτιόσσετο θυμὸς ἀγήνωρ,
ἀλλὰ πολὺ πρώτιστος ἐπάλμενος ἔγχει ἕλεσκον        220
ἀνδρῶν δυσμενέων ὅ τέ μοι εἴξειε πόδεσσιν.

W.B. Stanford ad loc.:

214-15. 'Still, if you look at the straw you can see what the ear was, for I have had trouble enough and to spare' (Butler). Another agricultural Metaphor (cp. Il. 19, 222): an experienced farmer can judge from the straw or stubble alone how good the grain must have been; cp. ex stipula cognoscere aristam. Eumaeus, as a good judge of men, will recognize O.'s former prowess despite his weak and withered appearance now.

216 ff. ἔδοσαν: a plural verb between two singular subjects, a usage called the σχῆμα Ἀλκμανικόν from Alcman's fondness for it. I follow Monro in punctuating with a comma after ῥηξηνορίην (from ῥήγνυμι and ἀνήρ 'power to break through a line of warriors') and a colon after φυτεύων, on the grounds that it is not Homeric to begin a sentence with ὁπότε in the middle of a line. Then οὔ ποτέ μοι κ.τ.λ. in 219 is a kind of apodosis: '(in such a case) I never feared, etc.', repeating the statement in 216-17 in a new form: hence the Asyndeton. Monro compares 15, 317; 16, 466; 18, 278. Most of the other editors put a colon after ῥηξηνορίην and a comma after φυτεύων, taking ὁπότε κρίνοιμι κ.τ.λ. with the following clause.

221. 'Any enemy who was inferior to me in speed of foot.' Others translate 'who fled before me on foot '. ὅ τέ = ὅτε τις or εἴ τις here. Professor W.H. Porter suggests that the original may have been ὅτε τις changed to ὅτε μοι when the Digamma ceased to be felt in ϝείκω.