Odyssey 4.326 · Book 4, lines 326–330
Tell me plainly — by my father's deeds at Troy
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μηδέ τί μʼ αἰδόμενος μειλίσσεο μηδʼ ἐλεαίρων, ἀλλʼ εὖ μοι κατάλεξον ὅπως ἤντησας ὀπωπῆς. λίσσομαι, εἴ ποτέ τοί τι πατὴρ ἐμός, ἐσθλὸς Ὀδυσσεὺς ἢ ἔπος ἠέ τι ἔργον ὑποστὰς ἐξετέλεσσε δήμῳ ἔνι Τρώων, ὅθι πάσχετε πήματʼ Ἀχαιοί,
And do not, out of respect, soften your words, nor out of pity, but tell me well how you met the sight. I beg you — if ever my father, noble Odysseus, undertaking some word or some deed, brought it to pass in the land of the Trojans, where you Achaeans suffered griefs —
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The setting
Telemachus finishes his plea. He asks Menelaus not to soften the truth out of kindness, and binds the request to the war they shared — recalling how Odysseus made good on his word and work at Troy, where the Achaeans suffered so much.
A note on this passage
The heart of the appeal: do not spare me. Telemachus asks Menelaus not to gentle the news out of pity or respect, but to lay it out in full — a young man insisting he can bear the plain truth. Then he presses the strongest claim he has, the bond of shared war: remember what my father did for you at Troy.
The sentence deliberately breaks off unfinished. "If ever my father made good some word or deed at Troy…" hangs in the air, its 'then help me now' left unspoken, the way a supplication invokes past service to compel present aid. He is calling in Odysseus's debt of comradeship, staking his own hope on the memory of a father he was too young to know.
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