Odyssey 2.170 · Book 2, lines 170–173
‘I do not prophesy untested’
Read the full text in our reader
οὐ γὰρ ἀπείρητος μαντεύομαι, ἀλλʼ ἐὺ εἰδώς· καὶ γὰρ κείνῳ φημὶ τελευτηθῆναι ἅπαντα, ὥς οἱ ἐμυθεόμην, ὅτε Ἴλιον εἰσανέβαινον Ἀργεῖοι, μετὰ δέ σφιν ἔβη πολύμητις Ὀδυσσεύς.
For I prophesy not untested, but knowing well; and indeed I say that for that man all has been fulfilled, just as I told him, when the Argives were embarking for Ilion, and among them went Odysseus of many counsels.
Word by word
The setting
Halitherses backs his prophecy with his record: what he foretold to Odysseus himself, when the Greek army first sailed for Troy, is coming true.
A note on this passage
The seer stakes his authority. He does not prophesy blindly but with knowledge, and he offers proof: everything he once told Odysseus, back when the Argives were embarking for Troy, has come to pass exactly as he said.
Odysseus's signature epithet, πολύμητις, ‘of many counsels,’ lands right here — on the memory of his departure for the war. The word holds μῆτις, the cunning intelligence the whole poem is betting on to bring him home. The seer's argument is essentially chronological faith: a true word spoken twenty years ago is being fulfilled to the day, so the word spoken now will hold too.
Read the full commentary — and tap any word for its dictionary entry — in the interlinear reader.
Open Odyssey 2.170 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 2.170 — The Great Library Project interlinear edition · greatlibraryproject.com/book/odyssey/2.170/