Odyssey 2.134 · Book 2, lines 134–137
The Furies a mother can summon
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ἐκ γὰρ τοῦ πατρὸς κακὰ πείσομαι, ἄλλα δὲ δαίμων δώσει, ἐπεὶ μήτηρ στυγερὰς ἀρήσετʼ ἐρινῦς οἴκου ἀπερχομένη· νέμεσις δέ μοι ἐξ ἀνθρώπων ἔσσεται· ὣς οὐ τοῦτον ἐγώ ποτε μῦθον ἐνίψω.
For from her father I shall suffer evils, and a god will give others still, since my mother will call down the hateful Furies as she leaves the house; and retribution from men will be upon me; so never will I ever speak this word.
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The setting
Telemachus continues, laying out the ruin that expelling Penelope would bring: her father's vengeance, a god's added blows, his mother's curse rousing the Furies, and the reproach of his own people.
A note on this passage
Telemachus completes the reckoning. Casting out his mother would cost him on every side: Icarius's retaliation, further ills from heaven, the curse Penelope would lay as she went, and the open contempt of the townsmen. He will never say the word that starts it.
The forces he names are not sentiment but the machinery of his world. A wronged parent's curse was believed to rouse the Erinyes, the Furies who hunt down offenders against kin — a prayer with teeth. And the ills come from a δαίμων: not a named Olympian but the divine met as sheer nameless power, the agency that simply 'gives' a person their portion of suffering. Telemachus is held back less by love than by dread of a universe built to punish the deed.
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