Odyssey 3.181 · Book 3, lines 181–183
Nestor holds his course for Pylos
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Nestor — Τυδεΐδεω ἕταροι Διομήδεος ἱπποδάμοιο ἵστασαν· αὐτὰρ ἐγώ γε Πύλονδʼ ἔχον, οὐδέ ποτʼ ἔσβη οὖρος, ἐπεὶ δὴ πρῶτα θεὸς προέηκεν ἀῆναι.
…the comrades of Tydeus' son Diomedes, tamer of horses, drew up their ships; but I, for my part, held my course for Pylos, and the fair wind never once died down, since a god first sent it forth to blow.
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The setting
Nestor is finishing his account of the Greek fleet's return from Troy. Where Diomedes' men put in, Nestor sailed straight on to Pylos with a god-sent wind at his back.
A note on this passage
Nestor finishes the story of his own voyage. Where Diomedes' men put in with their ships, he sailed straight on for Pylos, and the wind a god had raised at the start never failed him the whole way home. It is the last stroke of a happy return, told plainly.
The undercurrent is how the return is measured: by a wind that does not stop. In this poem homecoming is a thing the gods either grant or withhold, and Nestor's steady breeze is quietly the opposite of the storms and calms that keep Odysseus from Ithaca. The old man had a god at his back the whole way — and he knows it.
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