Odyssey 3.466 · Book 3, lines 466–469
He steps out like a god
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αὐτὰρ ἐπεὶ λοῦσέν τε καὶ ἔχρισεν λίπʼ ἐλαίῳ, ἀμφὶ δέ μιν φᾶρος καλὸν βάλεν ἠδὲ χιτῶνα, ἔκ ῥʼ ἀσαμίνθου βῆ δέμας ἀθανάτοισιν ὁμοῖος· πὰρ δʼ ὅ γε Νέστορʼ ἰὼν κατʼ ἄρʼ ἕζετο, ποιμένα λαῶν.
But when she had bathed him and anointed him richly with oil, and cast a fair cloak and a tunic about him, he stepped out of the bath in form like the immortals; and he went and sat down beside Nestor, shepherd of the peoples.
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The setting
Polycaste finishes the bath. Anointed, dressed in fresh cloak and tunic, Telemachus comes out of the bathing-tub transformed, and takes his seat beside his host.
A note on this passage
The transformation is complete in one line: washed, oiled, and freshly clothed, Telemachus comes out of the tub ‘in body like the immortals.’ The bath-and-dress sequence is a stock scene, but the god-like emergence is a mark the poem reserves for its favored figures — the same simile Odysseus earns when Athena beautifies him.
The quiet claim is developmental. The boy who could barely speak to strangers in Book 1 now steps forth radiant and takes his seat beside a king as an equal at the feast. δέμας ἀθανάτοισιν ὁμοῖος, ‘in form like the gods,’ is the outward sign of an inner coming-of-age: Telemachus is beginning to look like the son of Odysseus, and to be received as one.
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