Odyssey 3.262 · Book 3, lines 262–264
We toiled at Troy; he wooed at home
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ἡμεῖς μὲν γὰρ κεῖθι πολέας τελέοντες ἀέθλους ἥμεθʼ· ὁ δʼ εὔκηλος μυχῷ Ἄργεος ἱπποβότοιο πόλλʼ Ἀγαμεμνονέην ἄλοχον θέλγεσκʼ ἐπέεσσιν.
For we, on our part, sat there carrying through many struggles; but he, at his ease in a nook of Argos, the horse-pasturing land, again and again beguiled Agamemnon's wife with his words.
Word by word
The setting
Nestor draws the contrast at the core of the tale: while the Greeks toiled through the war at Troy, Aegisthus stayed home in Argos, patiently working his way into the heart of Agamemnon's wife.
A note on this passage
Now the contrast that is the heart of it: while the army labored through the long years of war at Troy, Aegisthus stayed safely home in a quiet corner of Argos and, day after day, worked on Agamemnon's wife with nothing but talk. The two verbs tell the whole story — we 'sat' enduring trials, he 'beguiled' at leisure.
The seduction is a slow campaign, not a moment of passion. thélgeske, an iterative, means he charmed her again and again, wearing down resistance while her husband bled at Troy. Homer sets the coward's war deliberately against the real one, and the danger to a house left without its master is exactly the shadow hanging over Ithaca.
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