Odyssey 4.331 · Book 4, line 331
Remember, and tell me true
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τῶν νῦν μοι μνῆσαι, καί μοι νημερτὲς ἐνίσπες.
Of these things now remember for me, and tell me truly.
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The setting
Telemachus has begged Menelaus, king of Sparta, for any word of his lost father Odysseus. This is the closing line of that plea: recall it all, and tell me without error.
A note on this passage
One line closes Telemachus's appeal. He has laid out his need and now asks only for accuracy: recall it all, and tell me without error. The verb for 'remember' reaches back over everything Menelaus might know of Odysseus.
The quiet thing is the word νημερτές, 'unerring.' A young man asks a king not for comfort but for the plain truth, however hard. It is the same demand the poem will make of Proteus a hundred lines on: the sea-god, too, must speak νημερτής. The word ties the son's question to the divine answer that is coming.
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