Odyssey 3.201 · Book 3, line 201
Wise Telemachus answers
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τὸν δʼ αὖ Τηλέμαχος πεπνυμένος ἀντίον ηὔδα·
Then wise Telemachus addressed him in turn in answer:
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The setting
The narrator's reply-formula turning the speech from Nestor to Telemachus. The half-line carries the prince's fixed epithet, πεπνυμένος, ‘prudent.’
A note on this passage
A single formulaic verse hands the floor from Nestor to Telemachus. The line is a fixed reply-formula, used again and again through the poem whenever the prince speaks, and it carries his standing epithet, ‘wise’ or ‘prudent.’
The formula is quietly load-bearing here. After a whole speech testing whether the boy is truly Odysseus's son, the poem answers by naming him πεπνυμένος — sound in judgment — just before he opens his mouth. The set phrase does character work: it tells us how to hear the reply before we have heard a word of it.
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