Odyssey 3.216 · Book 3, lines 216–220
If only Athena loved you as she loved your father
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τίς δʼ οἶδʼ εἴ κέ ποτέ σφι βίας ἀποτίσεται ἐλθών, ἢ ὅ γε μοῦνος ἐὼν ἢ καὶ σύμπαντες Ἀχαιοί; εἰ γάρ σʼ ὣς ἐθέλοι φιλέειν γλαυκῶπις Ἀθήνη, ὡς τότʼ Ὀδυσσῆος περικήδετο κυδαλίμοιο δήμῳ ἔνι Τρώων, ὅθι πάσχομεν ἄλγεʼ Ἀχαιοί—
And who knows if he may come and someday make them pay for their violence, whether he alone, or all the Achaeans together? For if bright-eyed Athena were willing to love you so, as she then cared for glorious Odysseus in the land of the Trojans, where we Achaeans suffered woes —
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The setting
Still answering Telemachus, Nestor imagines Odysseus returning to punish the suitors, and wishes the boy the same divine favor his father won at Troy — where Nestor himself fought and saw Athena stand by Odysseus.
A note on this passage
Nestor floats the hope of a reckoning. Who knows, he says, whether Odysseus may yet come and make the suitors pay for their violence — alone, or backed by all the Achaeans? Then he anchors the wish in memory: if only Athena would love the son as she cared for the father at Troy.
This is the Iliad speaking inside the Odyssey. Nestor recalls a battlefield where the goddess stood plainly at Odysseus's side. The old soldier measures the boy's chances by the father's divine friendship — not knowing that the very goddess he names is sitting beside him now, wearing the face of Mentor.
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