Odyssey 3.102 · Book 3, line 102
The Gerenian horseman answers
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τὸν δʼ ἠμείβετʼ ἔπειτα Γερήνιος ἱππότα Νέστωρ·
Then the Gerenian horseman Nestor answered him:
Word by word
The setting
The single verse that hands the floor from Telemachus to his host. It is the fixed reply-formula, closing on Nestor's full-dress epithet — the name the poem always gives him when he is about to speak at length.
A note on this passage
A hinge line, and pure formula: the verse that turns the speech over to Nestor. “The Gerenian horseman Nestor” is his standing title, the whole-line naming Homer reserves for the moment the old man takes the floor.
The formula earns its place here. Telemachus has just sworn an urgent oath and begged for the plain truth; the leisurely, honorific naming answers that urgency with the unhurried dignity of the oldest man at Pylos. The epithet “horseman” reaches back to Nestor's own war-days — the very past he is about to reopen for the boy.
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