Odyssey 4.400 · Book 4, lines 400–403
At noon the old man rises from the sea
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ἦμος δʼ ἠέλιος μέσον οὐρανὸν ἀμφιβεβήκῃ, τῆμος ἄρʼ ἐξ ἁλὸς εἶσι γέρων ἅλιος νημερτὴς πνοιῇ ὕπο Ζεφύροιο μελαίνῃ φρικὶ καλυφθείς, ἐκ δʼ ἐλθὼν κοιμᾶται ὑπὸ σπέσσι γλαφυροῖσιν·
When the sun bestrides mid-heaven, then out of the sea comes the old man, the unerring one of the sea, veiled under Zephyr's breath in a dark ripple; and coming forth he lies down beneath the hollow caves.
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The setting
Eidothea begins the almanac of her father's habits. Proteus, the unerring old man of the sea, surfaces each day at midday on the west wind and beds down in the shoreline caves.
A note on this passage
The instruction opens as a piece of natural observation. At the exact hour the sun stands over mid-heaven, Proteus rises from the water on the west wind, hidden in the sea's dark ruffling, and settles to sleep among the hollow caves of the shore. It is timed, repeatable, and therefore ambushable.
The undercurrent is where his truth lives. Proteus is νημερτής, 'unerring,' the god who cannot speak falsely — yet he surfaces cloaked in a ripple and hides in a cave to sleep. Exact knowledge, in this poem, is not lying open; it has to be waited for at its one fixed hour and cornered while it rests. The reliable oracle is also the most elusive quarry.
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