Odyssey 2.285 · Book 2, lines 285–287
I will find you a ship and sail with you
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σοὶ δʼ ὁδὸς οὐκέτι δηρὸν ἀπέσσεται ἣν σὺ μενοινᾷς· τοῖος γάρ τοι ἑταῖρος ἐγὼ πατρώιός εἰμι, ὅς τοι νῆα θοὴν στελέω καὶ ἅμʼ ἕψομαι αὐτός.
And for you the journey which you long for shall not be far off for long; for such a friend of your father am I, who will fit out for you a swift ship and will follow with you myself.
Word by word
The setting
Athena pledges action. The voyage is near, and she — in Mentor's shape, an old friend of the house — will herself provide the ship and go along.
A note on this passage
Athena moves from counsel to promise: the voyage is close, and she will handle it — ship and passage both. She grounds the pledge in an old tie, ‘a friend of your father.’
That phrase is the disguise doing its quiet work. πατρώιος ἑταῖρος invokes the inherited bond of guest-friendship, the xenia that binds two houses across generations; it makes divine intervention look like an old man simply keeping faith with an absent friend's son. But the ‘friend’ is Athena, and the companion who offers to sail is a goddess. The whole machinery of the coming journey is being underwritten by Olympus in a borrowed human face.
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