Odyssey 2.214 · Book 2, lines 214–217
To Pylos and Sparta, for word of my father
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εἶμι γὰρ ἐς Σπάρτην τε καὶ ἐς Πύλον ἠμαθόεντα νόστον πευσόμενος πατρὸς δὴν οἰχομένοιο, ἤν τίς μοι εἴπῃσι βροτῶν ἢ ὄσσαν ἀκούσω ἐκ Διός, ἥ τε μάλιστα φέρει κλέος ἀνθρώποισιν·
For I will go to Sparta and to sandy Pylos, to learn of the return of my long-absent father, in case some mortal tells me, or I hear a rumor from Zeus, which above all brings tidings to men.
Word by word
The setting
Telemachus lays out the voyage: to Nestor at Pylos and Menelaus at Sparta, the two returned Greek kings most likely to have news of Odysseus, missing now for years.
A note on this passage
The plan gets its destinations. Telemachus will seek news where returned veterans of Troy have settled — Pylos and Sparta — and he will take any word he can get: a man's report, or a chance-heard ‘voice from Zeus,’ the rumor that carries furthest.
The key word is κλέος. It means both the news he is hunting and the fame a man leaves behind. Telemachus goes to learn word of his father, and the same word names what the journey will win for himself. The Odyssey quietly sets a son to gather his father's fame — and, in doing so, to begin his own.
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