Odyssey 2.357 · Book 2, lines 357–360
To Pylos and Sparta, for word of his father
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ἑσπέριος γὰρ ἐγὼν αἱρήσομαι, ὁππότε κεν δὴ μήτηρ εἰς ὑπερῷʼ ἀναβῇ κοίτου τε μέδηται. εἶμι γὰρ ἐς Σπάρτην τε καὶ ἐς Πύλον ἠμαθόεντα νόστον πευσόμενος πατρὸς φίλου, ἤν που ἀκούσω.
For at evening I will take them up, once at last my mother goes up to her chamber and turns to bed. For I am going to Sparta and to sandy Pylos, to learn of the homecoming of my dear father, if perhaps I may hear.”
Word by word
The setting
Telemachus reveals the plan's timing and purpose: he will take the stores at evening, after Penelope has gone to bed, and sail to Pylos and Sparta to seek news of his father's homecoming.
A note on this passage
Telemachus lays out the plan in full: he will carry the stores off at evening, once Penelope has gone up to bed, and sail for Pylos and Sparta to ask after his father. The secrecy of the last line now has a shape and a destination.
The errand is the engine of the poem's first four books. He goes ‘to learn of the νόστος of his dear father’ — to the two great homecomers, Nestor at Pylos and Menelaus at Sparta, for news of the one homecoming still unresolved. And it closes on a small, honest verb of hope: ἤν που ἀκούσω, ‘if perhaps I may hear.’ He does not expect to find Odysseus; he sets out only to hear whether he lives — the first step a son takes toward becoming a man who acts.
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