Odyssey 4.257 · Book 4, lines 257–258
He kills and returns with intelligence
Read the full text in our reader
πολλοὺς δὲ Τρώων κτείνας ταναήκεϊ χαλκῷ ἦλθε μετʼ Ἀργείους, κατὰ δὲ φρόνιν ἤγαγε πολλήν.
Then, killing many of the Trojans with the long-edged bronze, he went back to the Argives, and brought home much intelligence.
Word by word
The setting
The spying mission ends. Before slipping back to the Greek camp, Odysseus kills; and what he carries away is knowledge — the layout, plans, and mood of the besieged city. The Argives are the Greeks.
A note on this passage
The episode closes with its yield. The beggar drops the disguise long enough to kill, then carries back the real prize: not plunder but ‘much intelligence.’ The raid was reconnaissance, and it succeeds because the disguise let him walk through the city that the war could not take by force.
The undercurrent is the kind of hero this is. Achilles wins by standing in the open and being unbeatable; Odysseus wins by information, by getting inside and knowing. The same mind that gathers Troy's secrets here will, in the next tale Menelaus tells, build the Wooden Horse — the deception that ends the war the spearmen could not.
Read the full commentary — and tap any word for its dictionary entry — in the interlinear reader.
Open Odyssey 4.257 in the full reader
Always open passages in the reader
From the Great Library
You are reading a page of the Odyssey — the whole book is free in our interlinear reader.
The Great Library Project presses the classics in their original languages, glossed word by word — free to read, always. Browse the whole library.
Also on our shelves:
Odyssey 4.257 — The Great Library Project interlinear edition · greatlibraryproject.com/book/odyssey/4.257/