Odyssey 2.271 · Book 2, lines 271–273
If your father's spirit is in you
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εἰ δή τοι σοῦ πατρὸς ἐνέστακται μένος ἠύ, οἷος κεῖνος ἔην τελέσαι ἔργον τε ἔπος τε· οὔ τοι ἔπειθʼ ἁλίη ὁδὸς ἔσσεται οὐδʼ ἀτέλεστος.
If indeed your father's noble spirit is instilled in you — such as that man was, to accomplish both deed and word — then this journey of yours will not be vain nor unaccomplished.
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The setting
Athena, still in the shape of Mentor, is heartening Telemachus before his voyage to seek news of his father. She turns to the son's inheritance of the father's nature: the true test of the coming journey.
A note on this passage
Athena, wearing Mentor's face, frames the whole voyage as a conditional: if Odysseus's spirit lives in the son, the enterprise cannot fail. The encouragement is really a standard held up — the father as the measure the son must reach.
The measure is a formula: ἔργον τε ἔπος τε, ‘deed and word.’ To Homer the complete man is effective in both action and speech, and this is exactly the pairing that defines Odysseus, master of the ambush and the assembly alike. Telemachus's coming-of-age is being weighed against that double excellence before he has spoken or done a thing.
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