Odyssey 3.83 · Book 3, lines 83–85
In search of his father's fame
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πατρὸς ἐμοῦ κλέος εὐρὺ μετέρχομαι, ἤν που ἀκούσω δίου Ὀδυσσῆος ταλασίφρονος, ὅν ποτέ φασι σὺν σοὶ μαρνάμενον Τρώων πόλιν ἐξαλαπάξαι.
I go after the wide fame of my father, if somewhere I may hear of it — of divine Odysseus, the enduring-hearted, who once, they say, fighting at your side sacked the Trojans' city.
Word by word
The setting
Telemachus states the true purpose of his voyage: to gather any word — any κλέος — of his father Odysseus, the enduring man who, fighting beside Nestor, once helped sack Troy.
A note on this passage
Here the real errand comes out. Telemachus is chasing the wide fame of his father — any word of Odysseus he can catch — and he names him with the fixed honors: divine, enduring-hearted, the man who fought beside Nestor and helped storm Troy. The reminder of shared war is also a polite prompt: you knew him; tell me.
The charged phrase is κλέος εὐρύ, wide fame. It means at once the news the boy is hunting and the renown that keeps a man spoken of when he is gone — and Telemachus cannot yet know which he is chasing, a living father or only his echo. There is a quiet ache in a son who must travel to strangers to learn who his own father was. The epithet enduring-hearted hangs in the air like a promise the poem means to keep.
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