Odyssey 4.387 · Book 4, lines 387–390
Ambush him, and he will tell you the way
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Eidothea — τὸν δέ τʼ ἐμόν φασιν πατέρʼ ἔμμεναι ἠδὲ τεκέσθαι. τόν γʼ εἴ πως σὺ δύναιο λοχησάμενος λελαβέσθαι, ὅς κέν τοι εἴπῃσιν ὁδὸν καὶ μέτρα κελεύθου νόστον θʼ, ὡς ἐπὶ πόντον ἐλεύσεαι ἰχθυόεντα.
They say that he is my father and begot me. If somehow you could ambush him and catch him, he would tell you the way and the measures of your path, and your homecoming, how you shall cross the fishy sea.
Word by word
The setting
Eidothea reveals that Proteus is her own father, and gives Menelaus the key: if he can lie in wait and seize the shifting god, Proteus will tell him his route and his way home.
A note on this passage
Eidothea gives the plan its human hinge: the unerring god is her own father, and she is willing to betray his hiding-place to a stranger. The condition is physical, not clever — Menelaus must lie in wait and get his hands on Proteus. Only a captured god will speak; knowledge here has to be seized like a body.
What Proteus promises is precise. Not vague comfort but the way, the measures of the path, the homecoming — a route with stages, the sailor's exact answer. Eidothea echoes Menelaus's own words back to him, granting that the νόστος he begged to have named can indeed be had, but only at the price of an ambush. The daughter hands over the father so the stranger can go home.
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