Odyssey 2.349 · Book 2, lines 349–353
Telemachus: draw off the wine
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Telemachus — μαῖʼ, ἄγε δή μοι οἶνον ἐν ἀμφιφορεῦσιν ἄφυσσον ἡδύν, ὅτις μετὰ τὸν λαρώτατος ὃν σὺ φυλάσσεις κεῖνον ὀιομένη τὸν κάμμορον, εἴ ποθεν ἔλθοι διογενὴς Ὀδυσεὺς θάνατον καὶ κῆρας ἀλύξας. δώδεκα δʼ ἔμπλησον καὶ πώμασιν ἄρσον ἅπαντας.
“Nurse, come now, draw off wine for me in jars — sweet wine, whichever, next after that, is the most delicious, which you keep guarding, keeping that man in mind, the ill-fated one, if from somewhere he might come, Zeus-born Odysseus, having slipped past death and the dooms. Fill twelve, and fit them all with lids.
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The setting
Telemachus gives his instruction to the nurse. He asks her to draw off twelve jars of good wine for a voyage — but only the second-best, sparing the finest, which she keeps for Odysseus's return.
A note on this passage
Telemachus gives his first real order as master of the house, and it is precise and practical: draw off twelve jars of good wine for a voyage, and seal them. But he is careful to ask only for the second-best — the sweetest ‘after that one’ Eurycleia keeps back for Odysseus.
The tenderness is in what he will not touch. The finest wine stays reserved; even as he provisions his own secret journey, he leaves his father's homecoming-cup untouched and shares the old nurse's hope in the same breath — ‘that ill-fated man, if from somewhere he might come.’ κάμμορος, ‘doom-fated,’ is a word of grief and love at once; the household still speaks of Odysseus as alive, and the son sets out to make that hope true.
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