Odyssey 1.293 · Book 1, lines 293–297
Then plot the suitors' death — you are no longer a child
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αὐτὰρ ἐπὴν δὴ ταῦτα τελευτήσῃς τε καὶ ἔρξῃς, φράζεσθαι δὴ ἔπειτα κατὰ φρένα καὶ κατὰ θυμὸν ὅππως κε μνηστῆρας ἐνὶ μεγάροισι τεοῖσι κτείνῃς ἠὲ δόλῳ ἢ ἀμφαδόν· οὐδέ τί σε χρὴ νηπιάας ὀχέειν, ἐπεὶ οὐκέτι τηλίκος ἐσσι.
But once you have finished and done all this, then ponder well, in your mind and in your heart, how you may kill the suitors in your halls, whether by guile or in the open; you must not go on nursing childish ways, since you are no longer of such an age.
Word by word
The setting
With the mother settled, Mentes reaches the hard charge. Once the rites are done, Telemachus must plan how to kill the suitors in his own halls — by guile or in the open — and put childish helplessness behind him.
A note on this passage
Here the counsel turns to blood. After the mourning and the marriage come the reckoning: Telemachus is to plan, in mind and heart, the killing of the suitors in his own hall. The choice offered is stark and old — δόλῳ ἠὲ ἀμφαδόν, by guile or in the open.
The poem has already answered that choice. Odysseus's whole return will be δόλος: the beggar's disguise, the strung bow, the doors barred on the feasting men. And the last clause is the engine of the whole Telemachy — ‘you are no longer of such an age.’ Athena is telling a boy that childhood is over. The four books that follow are the story of him proving it.
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