Odyssey 4.394 · Book 4, lines 394–397
Set the ambush yourself, goddess
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ὣς ἔφατʼ, αὐτὰρ ἐγώ μιν ἀμειβόμενος προσέειπον·
Menelaus — αὐτὴ νῦν φράζευ σὺ λόχον θείοιο γέροντος, μή πώς με προϊδὼν ἠὲ προδαεὶς ἀλέηται· ἀργαλέος γάρ τʼ ἐστὶ θεὸς βροτῷ ἀνδρὶ δαμῆναι.
So she spoke; but I, answering her, addressed her: You yourself now devise the ambush of the divine old man, lest somehow, seeing me first or learning of me beforehand, he escape; for it is hard for a god to be subdued by a mortal man.
Word by word
The setting
Menelaus, recounting the tale to Telemachus at Sparta, answers the sea-nymph. He asks her to plan the trap for her father, since a mortal cannot overpower a god who sees the danger coming.
A note on this passage
Menelaus takes the plan and hands it straight back. Only the goddess can arrange the ambush of her own father, because if Proteus catches sight of the men first, or gets wind of them, he will simply slip away — and no mortal can wrestle down a god who is forewarned.
The quiet admission is the mortal limit. Menelaus is the famous king of Sparta, yet here he states plainly that human strength runs out at the edge of the divine; the whole scheme depends on divine help and on surprise. It is the same lesson the poem teaches through Odysseus: cunning and a god's favor, not raw force, are what get a man home.
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