Odyssey 4.421 · Book 4, lines 421–424
Hold him, then let the old man go
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τοῖος ἐὼν οἷόν κε κατευνηθέντα ἴδησθε, καὶ τότε δὴ σχέσθαι τε βίης λῦσαί τε γέροντα, ἥρως, εἴρεσθαι δέ, θεῶν ὅς τίς σε χαλέπτει, νόστον θʼ, ὡς ἐπὶ πόντον ἐλεύσεαι ἰχθυόεντα.
Being such as you saw him when laid to rest, then, hero, cease from your force and set the old man free, and ask which of the gods afflicts you, and about your return — how you shall come over the fish-filled sea.
Word by word
The setting
Eidothea, daughter of Proteus the Old Man of the Sea, is finishing her instructions to the stranded Menelaus: how to seize her shape-shifting father and wring the truth from him. She has told him to grip the god through every transformation; here she names the moment to stop.
A note on this passage
Eidothea closes her coaching. Grip the god through his changes, and only when he sinks back into the shape he wore lying down — his true, resting form — let go and stop forcing. Then question him: which god blocks you, and how do you sail home? The instruction is precise as a recipe.
The undercurrent is that truth here must be taken by force. Proteus will not lie or refuse; he simply cannot be questioned until he is pinned past all escape. Knowledge from the sea comes only to the one who holds on. It is the same lesson the poem prizes in Odysseus: endurance is what earns the answer.
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