Odyssey 3.188 · Book 3, lines 188–192
The captains who came home safe
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εὖ μὲν Μυρμιδόνας φάσʼ ἐλθέμεν ἐγχεσιμώρους, οὓς ἄγʼ Ἀχιλλῆος μεγαθύμου φαίδιμος υἱός, εὖ δὲ Φιλοκτήτην, Ποιάντιον ἀγλαὸν υἱόν. πάντας δʼ Ἰδομενεὺς Κρήτην εἰσήγαγʼ ἑταίρους, οἳ φύγον ἐκ πολέμου, πόντος δέ οἱ οὔ τινʼ ἀπηύρα.
Safely, men say, the spear-famed Myrmidons came home, whom the glorious son of great-hearted Achilles led; and safely Philoctetes, the splendid son of Poias. And Idomeneus brought all his comrades to Crete, those who escaped the war; and the sea took not one of them from him.
Word by word
The setting
Nestor lists the Greek leaders whose returns went well: the Myrmidons under Achilles' son Neoptolemus, the archer Philoctetes, and Idomeneus, who brought all his surviving Cretans home.
A note on this passage
A short roll-call of the lucky ones. The Myrmidons return under Neoptolemus, Achilles' son; Philoctetes reaches home; Idomeneus brings every man who survived the fighting safely back to Crete. Three names, three clean homecomings, ticked off in a line each.
The list is doing work. By naming the captains who came home whole, Nestor sharpens by contrast the one return he is circling toward — Agamemnon's. The repeated ‘safely… safely… not one lost’ builds an expectation of good fortune precisely so the next name can break it. The catalogue is a run-up to a fall.
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