Odyssey 3.195 · Book 3, lines 195–198
How good that a son is left behind
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ἀλλʼ ἦ τοι κεῖνος μὲν ἐπισμυγερῶς ἀπέτισεν· ὡς ἀγαθὸν καὶ παῖδα καταφθιμένοιο λιπέσθαι ἀνδρός, ἐπεὶ καὶ κεῖνος ἐτίσατο πατροφονῆα, Αἴγισθον δολόμητιν, ὅ οἱ πατέρα κλυτὸν ἔκτα.
But surely, I tell you, that man paid wretchedly. How good a thing it is that a son be left behind of a slain man — since that one too took vengeance on his father's slayer, guileful Aegisthus, who had slain his renowned father.
Word by word
The setting
Nestor finishes the tale of Agamemnon's murder with its lesson: Aegisthus paid for the crime, because Orestes, the dead king's son, took vengeance on his father's slayer — a pointed example for the listening Telemachus.
A note on this passage
Nestor closes the Agamemnon story on its moral. Aegisthus paid a bitter price; and how good it is, the old man reflects, that a murdered man leaves a son — for Orestes avenged his father by killing the killer. The vengeance is stated as plain justice, almost as a proverb.
The lesson is aimed. Nestor is speaking to a young man whose own father may be dead and whose house is full of Aegisthuses. ‘How good that a son be left behind’ is not idle wisdom but a nudge: Orestes acted, and won honour; the son sitting before him should mark it. The whole speech has been steering toward this quiet challenge.
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