Odyssey 2.77 · Book 2, lines 77–79
Now you cast hopeless pains in my heart
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τόφρα γὰρ ἂν κατὰ ἄστυ ποτιπτυσσοίμεθα μύθῳ χρήματʼ ἀπαιτίζοντες, ἕως κʼ ἀπὸ πάντα δοθείη· νῦν δέ μοι ἀπρήκτους ὀδύνας ἐμβάλλετε θυμῷ.
For then throughout the town we would press our claim, demanding back our goods, until everything should be given back; but now you cast hopeless pains into my heart.
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Telemachus finishes his speech. If the theft were open, he could dun the suitors through the town for repayment until all was returned. But as things stand, they leave him only helpless grief.
A note on this passage
He closes the legal fantasy and lands on the reality. In the imagined case he would go door to door demanding restitution until every last thing was handed back — a citizen with a claim. In the real case there is nothing to press: only ‘hopeless pains’ dropped into his heart.
The word ἀπρήκτους, ‘past all remedy,’ is the point of the whole speech. Everything Telemachus has said circles one fact: he has no lever that works. The scepter-speech of a grown man ends, in his mouth, as the helpless cry of a boy — which is exactly why the next lines have him break down, and why Athena has been at work to make him more than this.
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