Odyssey 3.21 · Book 3, lines 21–24
Telemachus balks
Read the full text in our reader
τὴν δʼ αὖ Τηλέμαχος πεπνυμένος ἀντίον ηὔδα·
Telemachus — Μέντορ, πῶς τʼ ἄρʼ ἴω; πῶς τʼ ἂρ προσπτύξομαι αὐτόν; οὐδέ τί πω μύθοισι πεπείρημαι πυκινοῖσιν· αἰδὼς δʼ αὖ νέον ἄνδρα γεραίτερον ἐξερέεσθαι.
And prudent Telemachus spoke to her in turn in answer: Mentor, how then am I to go? how then shall I greet him? Nor am I yet at all practiced in subtle speeches; and shame besides holds a young man back from questioning an elder.
Word by word
The setting
Prudent Telemachus answers with exactly the shyness Athena has just dismissed: he does not know how to approach so great a man.
A note on this passage
Telemachus balks — precisely as Athena predicted. He does not know how to walk up to the great Nestor, how to greet him, what to say. He has no practice in speeches, and 'shame holds a young man back from questioning an elder.'
The formula and the moment rub together. He is called πεπνυμένος, 'prudent Telemachus,' in the very line where he confesses he cannot speak — the fixed epithet naming the man he is becoming, not yet the boy he is. And the obstacle he names, αἰδώς, is the same shyness the goddess just brushed aside; the whole scene is the friction of a young man being pushed, one word at a time, across the threshold into adult speech.
Read the full commentary — and tap any word for its dictionary entry — in the interlinear reader.
Open Odyssey 3.21 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 3.21 — The Great Library Project interlinear edition · greatlibraryproject.com/book/odyssey/3.21/