Odyssey 4.398 · Book 4, lines 398–399
The shining goddess answers at once
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ὣς ἐφάμην, ἡ δʼ αὐτίκʼ ἀμείβετο δῖα θεάων·
Eidothea — τοιγὰρ ἐγώ τοι, ξεῖνε, μάλʼ ἀτρεκέως ἀγορεύσω.
So I spoke, and she at once answered, the shining goddess: Then, stranger, I will tell you very exactly.
Word by word
The setting
The reply-formula that turns the scene over to Eidothea, who now begins the detailed instructions for ambushing Proteus.
A note on this passage
A hinge line. Menelaus finishes; the goddess replies 'at once' — no hesitation, no bargaining — and opens with a promise to tell him 'very exactly.' The narrative machinery clicks over from request to instruction.
The fixed phrase does real work here. 'Shining among goddesses' is grand dress for a minor sea-nymph, but it lends her the authority of a true informant, and her pledge of ἀτρεκέως, 'exactly, without swerving from the truth,' looks straight ahead to the epithet of Proteus himself, νημερτής, 'unerring.' In this scene truth is the currency: a truthful helper points the way to a god who cannot lie once he is held.
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