Odyssey 3.395 · Book 3, lines 395–399
The guest bedded in the echoing portico
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αὐτὰρ ἐπεὶ σπεῖσάν τʼ ἔπιον θʼ, ὅσον ἤθελε θυμός, οἱ μὲν κακκείοντες ἔβαν οἶκόνδε ἕκαστος, τὸν δʼ αὐτοῦ κοίμησε Γερήνιος ἱππότα Νέστωρ, Τηλέμαχον, φίλον υἱὸν Ὀδυσσῆος θείοιο, τρητοῖς ἐν λεχέεσσιν ὑπʼ αἰθούσῃ ἐριδούπῳ,
But when they had poured libations and drunk as much as their heart desired, each went off homeward, eager to lie down. But Telemachus, dear son of godlike Odysseus, the Gerenian horseman Nestor bedded there, on a corded bedstead under the echoing portico,
Word by word
The setting
With the wine drunk and the libations made, the household disperses to sleep. As host, Nestor personally sees his young guest to bed — Telemachus, whom the poem names as the son of the still-missing Odysseus.
A note on this passage
The gathering breaks up. Each man goes home to sleep, and Nestor himself settles the young guest for the night — Telemachus, named in full as the son of Odysseus — on a corded bed under the roofed portico.
The care is the point. A host of Nestor's standing beds the honored guest himself, in the sheltered porch where noble visitors sleep. And the boy is named here not as himself but as 'dear son of godlike Odysseus': the courtesy is paid to the father through the son, the same father whose fate the whole journey is meant to uncover.
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