Odyssey 1.221 · Book 1, line 221
The goddess answers in turn
Read the full text in our reader
τὸν δʼ αὖτε προσέειπε θεά, γλαυκῶπις Ἀθήνη·
Then in turn the goddess addressed him, gray-eyed Athena:
Word by word
The setting
A single formulaic verse hands the conversation back to the visitor — whom Telemachus sees as the guest Mentes and the narrator names plainly.
A note on this passage
A single verse of formula hands the conversation back to the visitor. To Telemachus the speaker is Mentes, a Taphian guest-friend; the narrator, over the boy's head, names her plainly — the goddess, gray-eyed Athena.
The gap is the point. The line lets the reader stand where Telemachus cannot, knowing that a divinity has come down into his hall to answer a fatherless boy's grief. γλαυκῶπις, ‘gray-’ or ‘owl-eyed,’ is Athena's oldest fixed epithet; the poem keeps it running even under the disguise, so that the god is never quite hidden from us even while she is wholly hidden from him.
Read the full commentary — and tap any word for its dictionary entry — in the interlinear reader.
Open Odyssey 1.221 in the full reader
Always open passages in the reader
From the Great Library
You are reading a page of the Odyssey — the whole book is free in our interlinear reader.
The Great Library Project presses the classics in their original languages, glossed word by word — free to read, always. Browse the whole library.
Also on our shelves:
Odyssey 1.221 — The Great Library Project interlinear edition · greatlibraryproject.com/book/odyssey/1.221/