Odyssey 3.230 · Book 3, lines 230–233
A god could bring a man home from anywhere
Read the full text in our reader
Athena (as Mentor) — Τηλέμαχε, ποῖόν σε ἔπος φύγεν ἕρκος ὀδόντων. ῥεῖα θεός γʼ ἐθέλων καὶ τηλόθεν ἄνδρα σαώσαι. βουλοίμην δʼ ἂν ἐγώ γε καὶ ἄλγεα πολλὰ μογήσας οἴκαδέ τʼ ἐλθέμεναι καὶ νόστιμον ἦμαρ ἰδέσθαι,
Telemachus, what a word has escaped the barrier of your teeth. Easily a god, if he wills, could bring a man safe home even from afar. I, for my part, would rather, having suffered many woes, come home and see the day of return,
Word by word
The setting
Athena, still disguised as Mentor, rebukes Telemachus's despair. She insists that a willing god can save a man across any distance, and says she herself would choose long suffering and a homecoming over any easier fate.
A note on this passage
Athena checks the despair gently. What a word has slipped past the barrier of your teeth, she says — a god who wills it could bring a man safely home even from the ends of the earth. For herself, she would rather suffer much and live to see the day of homecoming.
She is arguing her own trade. Homecoming — nostos — is precisely what Athena manages for Odysseus, and she states the theology flatly: divine will can override any distance. The old phrase 'barrier of the teeth' makes speech a thing that gets past a gate, and Telemachus has just let a faithless word escape.
Read the full commentary — and tap any word for its dictionary entry — in the interlinear reader.
Open Odyssey 3.230 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 3.230 — The Great Library Project interlinear edition · greatlibraryproject.com/book/odyssey/3.230/