Odyssey 3.113 · Book 3, lines 113–117
No one could tell it all
Read the full text in our reader
Nestor — ἄλλα τε πόλλʼ ἐπὶ τοῖς πάθομεν κακά· τίς κεν ἐκεῖνα πάντα γε μυθήσαιτο καταθνητῶν ἀνθρώπων; οὐδʼ εἰ πεντάετές γε καὶ ἑξάετες παραμίμνων ἐξερέοις ὅσα κεῖθι πάθον κακὰ δῖοι Ἀχαιοί· πρίν κεν ἀνιηθεὶς σὴν πατρίδα γαῖαν ἵκοιο.
And many other evils besides these we suffered; who of mortal men could tell all those things? Not even if for five years and six you stayed at my side and kept asking how many evils the noble Achaeans suffered there; before that, wearied, you would reach your fatherland.
Word by word
The setting
Nestor breaks off the catalogue. The sorrows of Troy were beyond counting: no mortal could tell them all, and not in five or six years of questioning would his guest learn everything the Achaeans endured — he would tire and go home first.
A note on this passage
Nestor stops the roll and steps back: the griefs were too many for any telling. No mortal could recount them; not in five or six years of steady questioning would you learn all that the Achaeans bore — you would weary and sail home before the tale was done.
The undercurrent is the epic's knowing wink at its own vastness. The poem that could sing the whole war gives us a speaker who protests that it cannot be sung. And Nestor's “you would go home first” is also a courteous glance at his guest — a reminder, gently placed, that Telemachus has a home of his own still waiting to be reached.
Read the full commentary — and tap any word for its dictionary entry — in the interlinear reader.
Open Odyssey 3.113 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 3.113 — The Great Library Project interlinear edition · greatlibraryproject.com/book/odyssey/3.113/