Odyssey 1.252 · Book 1, line 252
The goddess answers — indignant
Read the full text in our reader
τὸν δʼ ἐπαλαστήσασα προσηύδα Παλλὰς Ἀθήνη·
Then, filled with indignation, Pallas Athena spoke to him:
Word by word
The setting
The narrator's reply-formula: the single verse that turns Telemachus's lament into the goddess's answer. To Telemachus the speaker is only the stranger 'Mentes'; the poem names her true self.
A note on this passage
A single verse, and the book turns on it: from complaint to counsel. The narrator marks the goddess's mood before she opens her mouth — ἐπαλαστήσασα, seized with indignation — and names her in full, Pallas Athena, though to Telemachus she is still only the guest Mentes.
The reader hears the divine name the boy cannot. And the loaded participle inside a routine formula does real work: ‘so she addressed him’ is standard machinery, but ‘filled with indignation’ is not. It is her anger, not his grief, that will drive the plot from here — the household's wrong has reached a god, and a god has taken it personally.
Read the full commentary — and tap any word for its dictionary entry — in the interlinear reader.
Open Odyssey 1.252 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 1.252 — The Great Library Project interlinear edition · greatlibraryproject.com/book/odyssey/1.252/