Odyssey 2.270 · Book 2, line 270
Athena begins: not base, not witless
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Athena (as Mentor) — Τηλέμαχʼ, οὐδʼ ὄπιθεν κακὸς ἔσσεαι οὐδʼ ἀνοήμων,
Telemachus, you will not hereafter be base, nor witless,
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The setting
Athena, as Mentor, begins her reply to Telemachus — the encouragement that will set his voyage truly in motion.
A note on this passage
The goddess opens with reassurance shaped as prophecy: you will not, in time to come, be base or without sense. She answers the boy's anxiety before he has fully spoken it, telling him what kind of man he is going to be.
The undercurrent is inheritance. 'Not base, not witless' is a coming-of-age verdict — Athena is measuring Telemachus against his father, promising the son will prove worthy of the line. The single line begins the poem's steady work of turning a slighted boy into Odysseus's heir, and it begins, fittingly, with a god's confidence rather than his own.
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