Odyssey 3.331 · Book 3, lines 331–336
Athena calls the evening to a close
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Athena (as Mentor) — ὦ γέρον, ἦ τοι ταῦτα κατὰ μοῖραν κατέλεξας· ἀλλʼ ἄγε τάμνετε μὲν γλώσσας, κεράασθε δὲ οἶνον, ὄφρα Ποσειδάωνι καὶ ἄλλοις ἀθανάτοισιν σπείσαντες κοίτοιο μεδώμεθα· τοῖο γὰρ ὥρη. ἤδη γὰρ φάος οἴχεθʼ ὑπὸ ζόφον, οὐδὲ ἔοικεν· δηθὰ θεῶν ἐν δαιτὶ θαασσέμεν, ἀλλὰ νέεσθαι.
O old man, truly you have told these things rightly. But come, cut the tongues and mix the wine, so that, having poured libation to Poseidon and the other immortals, we may turn to bed; for it is the hour. For already the light has gone beneath the gloom, nor is it fitting to sit long at the feast of the gods, but to go home.
Word by word
The setting
Nestor has finished his long tale of the returns from Troy. Athena — present as Mentor, Telemachus's escort — answers with the courteous formula that ends a feast: praise, then the order for the closing libations before sleep.
A note on this passage
Athena, still wearing Mentor's face, closes the long evening. She praises Nestor's telling, then moves briskly to ritual: cut the sacrificial tongues, mix the wine, pour the libations, and go to bed. It is the practical courtesy that ends a feast.
The undercurrent is the goddess managing time. She invokes piety — the hour, the fitting thing, the gods' own feast — but she is steering the evening toward departure, as she will steer the whole voyage. The daylight failing ὑπὸ ζόφον, 'beneath the gloom,' is the west, the sun's dying quarter; the plainest word for nightfall carries the direction the dead go.
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