Odyssey 3.241 · Book 3, lines 241–246
For that man, no homecoming left
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Telemachus — κείνῳ δʼ οὐκέτι νόστος ἐτήτυμος, ἀλλά οἱ ἤδη φράσσαντʼ ἀθάνατοι θάνατον καὶ κῆρα μέλαιναν. νῦν δʼ ἐθέλω ἔπος ἄλλο μεταλλῆσαι καὶ ἐρέσθαι Νέστορʼ, ἐπεὶ περὶ οἶδε δίκας ἠδὲ φρόνιν ἄλλων· τρὶς γὰρ δή μίν φασιν ἀνάξασθαι γένεʼ ἀνδρῶν· ὥς τέ μοι ἀθάνατος ἰνδάλλεται εἰσοράασθαι.
For that man there is no sure homecoming now; but already the immortals have devised for him death and black doom. Now I wish to inquire another matter and ask Nestor, since he knows judgments and wisdom beyond all others; for three times, they say, he has ruled over generations of men — so to me he seems immortal to look upon.
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The setting
Telemachus has been talking with Nestor and with Athena (disguised as Mentor) about his lost father. Giving up hope for Odysseus, he turns to ask the aged king about another famous return — that of Agamemnon.
A note on this passage
Telemachus lets his father go. If Odysseus is truly dead, no homecoming is left him, and the boy turns from grief to a question that can be answered: how did Agamemnon die? He frames it as flattery — Nestor has outlived three generations and seems almost a god — but the real hunger is for the story of a king killed at his own return.
The turn is deliberate. Telemachus asks about the one homecoming that went most wrong, the murder of Agamemnon by Aegisthus and a faithless wife. It is the dark mirror the poem keeps lifting to Ithaca: a lord away at war, a house taken from within, a son who must avenge. In asking after Agamemnon, Telemachus is quietly asking after himself.
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