Odyssey 4.407 · Book 4, lines 407–409
I will bed you among them at dawn
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ἔνθα σʼ ἐγὼν ἀγαγοῦσα ἅμʼ ἠοῖ φαινομένηφιν εὐνάσω ἑξείης· σὺ δʼ ἐὺ κρίνασθαι ἑταίρους τρεῖς, οἵ τοι παρὰ νηυσὶν ἐυσσέλμοισιν ἄριστοι.
There, leading you as dawn appears, I will lay you in a row; and you, choose well three companions, those who are best beside your well-benched ships.
Word by word
The setting
Eidothea lays out the ambush proper: she will bring Menelaus and three chosen men at daybreak and lay them in a row among the seals, disguised, to wait for Proteus.
A note on this passage
The plan turns concrete. The goddess will bring the men at first light and bed them down in a line among the seals; Menelaus's task is only to pick his three strongest companions from the ships. She stages the trap; the mortals supply the hands.
The move is pure Odyssean cunning: to take the sea-god you hide inside his own flock. It is the same trick, in miniature, as the Wooden Horse that Menelaus himself will describe later in this very book — men concealed inside the thing the enemy trusts. Homecoming, here as at Troy, is won by ambush and disguise, four men waiting in borrowed skins.
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