Odyssey 1.298 · Book 1, lines 298–302
The example of Orestes
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ἢ οὐκ ἀίεις οἷον κλέος ἔλλαβε δῖος Ὀρέστης πάντας ἐπʼ ἀνθρώπους, ἐπεὶ ἔκτανε πατροφονῆα, Αἴγισθον δολόμητιν, ὅ οἱ πατέρα κλυτὸν ἔκτα; καὶ σύ, φίλος, μάλα γάρ σʼ ὁρόω καλόν τε μέγαν τε, ἄλκιμος ἔσσʼ, ἵνα τίς σε καὶ ὀψιγόνων ἐὺ εἴπῃ.
Or have you not heard what glory noble Orestes won among all men, when he killed his father's murderer, guileful Aegisthus, who had slain his famous father? You too, friend — for I see you are handsome and tall — be brave, so that even those born later may speak well of you.
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The setting
Mentes clinches the exhortation with the poem's favorite parallel: Orestes, who won undying fame by killing Aegisthus, the man who had murdered his father Agamemnon. He holds the young avenger up as a model and calls Telemachus to be brave.
A note on this passage
The Orestes story, first raised by Zeus in the council of the gods, now becomes a weapon of persuasion. Orestes killed Aegisthus, his father's murderer, and won κλέος ‘among all men’ for it. Mentes lays the pattern over Telemachus like a template: there is your model; you are grown; be brave.
The undercurrent is what glory is made of. Orestes' fame lives because ὀψίγονοι, men ‘born later,’ still speak of it — κλέος is the being-spoken-of that outlasts the deed. And note the word for Aegisthus: δολόμητις, ‘guile-minded,’ the same cunning that in Odysseus is heroic. The poem keeps its highest gift, μῆτις, morally two-edged — the exact quality that will win Ithaca back is also the quality that once destroyed Agamemnon's house.
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