Odyssey 2.291 · Book 2, lines 291–295
A crew and a ship from Ithaca
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δέρμασιν ἐν πυκινοῖσιν· ἐγὼ δʼ ἀνὰ δῆμον ἑταίρους αἶψʼ ἐθελοντῆρας συλλέξομαι. εἰσὶ δὲ νῆες πολλαὶ ἐν ἀμφιάλῳ Ἰθάκῃ, νέαι ἠδὲ παλαιαί· τάων μέν τοι ἐγὼν ἐπιόψομαι ἥ τις ἀρίστη, ὦκα δʼ ἐφοπλίσσαντες ἐνήσομεν εὐρέι πόντῳ.
in close-sewn skins. Meanwhile I, through the district, will quickly gather willing companions. And there are ships, many, in sea-girt Ithaca, new and old; of these I will pick out for you whichever one is best, and quickly, once she is fitted out, we will launch on the wide sea.
Word by word
The setting
Athena finishes laying out the voyage: she herself will raise a volunteer crew from the town, choose the best of Ithaca's ships, and put straight to sea.
A note on this passage
Athena completes the plan: while Telemachus provisions, she will muster a crew of volunteers from the town, choose the best hull in the harbor — new or old — and put to sea at once. The disguise holds; a goddess does a captain's ordinary legwork.
The scene's space quietly opens. Until now the poem has been penned inside the besieged house; here the horizon widens to ‘the wide sea,’ εὐρέι πόντῳ, where the real quest lies. The little Telemachy — the son's own coming-of-age journey before the poem returns to his father — is being launched, and the last word is the open water itself.
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