Odyssey 2.410 · Book 2, lines 410–412
“One alone heard the plan”
Read the full text in our reader
Telemachus — δεῦτε, φίλοι, ἤια φερώμεθα· πάντα γὰρ ἤδη ἁθρόʼ ἐνὶ μεγάρῳ. μήτηρ δʼ ἐμὴ οὔ τι πέπυσται, οὐδʼ ἄλλαι δμωαί, μία δʼ οἴη μῦθον ἄκουσεν.
Come, friends, let us fetch the provisions; for everything is already gathered in the hall. My mother knows nothing of it, nor the other handmaids; one alone heard the plan.
Word by word
The setting
On the beach Telemachus takes command of his crew for the first time, calling them to load the stores he has secretly readied. He notes that the voyage is a secret: his mother Penelope and the household maids know nothing — only the housekeeper Eurycleia, whom he swore to silence, has been told.
A note on this passage
Telemachus's first order as a leader is practical and quiet: fetch the provisions, they are already stowed in the hall. The competence is new — he has provisioned a voyage in secret and now directs grown men to carry it out. The speech is short, plain, and entirely in control.
The undercurrent is the secrecy from his mother. "My mother knows nothing" is not a boast but the whole shape of his departure: to grow, he must leave without Penelope's knowledge, and the one confidante is the old nurse sworn to hide it. The line quietly marks the break every son's coming-of-age requires — the household he is protecting is also the household he must slip away from.
Read the full commentary — and tap any word for its dictionary entry — in the interlinear reader.
Open Odyssey 2.410 in the full reader
Always open passages in the reader
From the Great Library
You are reading a page of the Odyssey — the whole book is free in our interlinear reader.
The Great Library Project presses the classics in their original languages, glossed word by word — free to read, always. Browse the whole library.
Also on our shelves:
Odyssey 2.410 — The Great Library Project interlinear edition · greatlibraryproject.com/book/odyssey/2.410/