Odyssey 3.313 · Book 3, lines 313–316
Do not stay away too long
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καὶ σύ, φίλος, μὴ δηθὰ δόμων ἄπο τῆλʼ ἀλάλησο, κτήματά τε προλιπὼν ἄνδρας τʼ ἐν σοῖσι δόμοισιν οὕτω ὑπερφιάλους, μή τοι κατὰ πάντα φάγωσιν κτήματα δασσάμενοι, σὺ δὲ τηϋσίην ὁδὸν ἔλθῃς.
And you, friend, do not wander long far away from home, leaving your possessions behind, and men so insolent in your halls, lest they devour it all, sharing out your goods, and you have gone on a wasted journey.
Word by word
The setting
Nestor turns from the tale of Agamemnon's house to address Telemachus directly. The lesson of the story is now the advice: do not linger abroad while your own house is under threat.
A note on this passage
Here the digression becomes a warning. Nestor stops telling the Agamemnon story and points it straight at Telemachus: do not do the wandering Menelaus did, because your house cannot spare you. The suitors are named as what they are — insolent men left loose among your things.
The undercurrent is timing, which the whole poem runs on. The fear is not only theft but futility: that Telemachus will come back to find the estate carved up and his errand pointless, a 'wasted journey.' Nestor, who has just praised the son who came home and acted, is teaching the harder half of the lesson — knowing when the going itself must not cost you the thing you went to save.
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