Odyssey 2.354 · Book 2, lines 354–356
…and the barley, in secret
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ἐν δέ μοι ἄλφιτα χεῦον ἐϋρραφέεσσι δοροῖσιν· εἴκοσι δʼ ἔστω μέτρα μυληφάτου ἀλφίτου ἀκτῆς. αὐτὴ δʼ οἴη ἴσθι· τὰ δʼ ἁθρόα πάντα τετύχθω·
And therein pour me barley-meal in well-sewn skins; let there be twenty measures of mill-crushed barley meal. And you alone must know of it; let all these things be gathered and readied.
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The setting
Telemachus finishes the provisions — twenty measures of milled barley in leather sacks — and gives the crucial command: she alone is to know, and everything is to be made ready.
A note on this passage
The provisioning finishes with the staple: twenty measures of milled barley in well-stitched leather sacks, the plain food beneath the wine. An epic voyage is being packed out of a household pantry, in exact quantities — twelve jars, twenty measures — the concreteness Homer never scants.
Then the real weight of the scene lands in three words: αὐτὴ δʼ οἴη ἴσθι, ‘and you alone must know.’ The voyage has to be kept secret — from the suitors, who would stop it, and from Penelope, whose grief would. Telemachus's first act as a man is to keep a counsel his mother is shut out of, trusting the old servant over the house. Coming of age here means learning to conceal.
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Odyssey 2.354 — The Great Library Project interlinear edition · greatlibraryproject.com/book/odyssey/2.354/