Odyssey 3.430 · Book 3, lines 430–435
All hands: the ox, the crew, the smith
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ὣς ἔφαθʼ, οἱ δʼ ἄρα πάντες ἐποίπνυον. ἦλθε μὲν ἂρ βοῦς ἐκ πεδίου, ἦλθον δὲ θοῆς παρὰ νηὸς ἐίσης Τηλεμάχου ἕταροι μεγαλήτορος, ἦλθε δὲ χαλκεὺς ὅπλʼ ἐν χερσὶν ἔχων χαλκήια, πείρατα τέχνης, ἄκμονά τε σφῦραν τʼ ἐυποίητόν τε πυράγρην, οἷσίν τε χρυσὸν εἰργάζετο· ἦλθε δʼ Ἀθήνη
Thus he spoke, and all bustled about. The ox came from the plain, and the comrades came beside the trim swift ship of great-hearted Telemachus; and the smith came, holding in his hands his tools of bronze, his craft's implements: anvil and hammer and well-made fire-tongs, with which he wrought gold; and Athena came —
Word by word
The setting
Nestor's orders take effect. Everything he called for now arrives in turn — the ox from the field, Telemachus's crew from the ship, and the smith with the bronze tools of his trade, and last of all the goddess herself.
A note on this passage
The vow turns to bustle. Everything Nestor ordered converges at once, and the poem lists it plainly: the ox led up from the plain, Telemachus's men brought from the beached ship, the smith arriving with his kit — the tools even catalogued, anvil and hammer and tongs, an unusually technical glimpse of a working craftsman.
Listen to the verb. Four times the line says 'came' — ἦλθε … ἦλθον … ἦλθε … ἦλθε δʼ Ἀθήνη — and the fourth lands on Athena. The goddess arrives in exactly the same grammar as an ox and a toolbox, slipped into the procession of props as if she were one more thing summoned. Homer marks the divine presence without a flourish: she simply comes, like everyone else, to her feast.
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