Odyssey 1.267 · Book 1, lines 267–270
On the knees of the gods — now think
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ἀλλʼ ἦ τοι μὲν ταῦτα θεῶν ἐν γούνασι κεῖται, ἤ κεν νοστήσας ἀποτίσεται, ἦε καὶ οὐκί, οἷσιν ἐνὶ μεγάροισι;· σὲ δὲ φράζεσθαι ἄνωγα, ὅππως κε μνηστῆρας ἀπώσεαι ἐκ μεγάροιο.
But truly these things lie on the knees of the gods — whether he will come home and take his vengeance, or not, in his own halls; but I bid you consider how you may thrust the suitors out of the hall.
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The setting
Athena checks her own vision of vengeance: whether Odysseus returns to punish the suitors is for the gods to decide. She turns from the absent father to the present son and gives him his charge.
A note on this passage
Athena checks her own vision. She has just imagined the killing; now she pulls back — whether Odysseus returns to take his revenge is not hers to promise, but rests with the gods. Then she turns from the father to the son: your task is the suitors.
‘On the knees of the gods,’ θεῶν ἐν γούνασι, is one of Homer's great phrases for the undecided future, as though outcomes were objects laid in a divine lap, not yet taken up. And the pivot is the point of the whole visit: Athena stops talking about Odysseus and makes Telemachus the actor. The counsel to come is not ‘wait for your father’ but ‘move.’ This is the hinge on which his coming-of-age turns.
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