Odyssey 4.454 · Book 4, lines 454–459
The Old Man's shapes
Read the full text in our reader
ἡμεῖς δὲ ἰάχοντες ἐπεσσύμεθʼ, ἀμφὶ δὲ χεῖρας βάλλομεν· οὐδʼ ὁ γέρων δολίης ἐπελήθετο τέχνης, ἀλλʼ ἦ τοι πρώτιστα λέων γένετʼ ἠυγένειος, αὐτὰρ ἔπειτα δράκων καὶ πάρδαλις ἠδὲ μέγας σῦς· γίγνετο δʼ ὑγρὸν ὕδωρ καὶ δένδρεον ὑψιπέτηλον· ἡμεῖς δʼ ἀστεμφέως ἔχομεν τετληότι θυμῷ.
We rushed upon him with a shout, and flung our arms around him; but the old man did not forget his crafty art. First of all he became a great-maned lion, then a serpent, a leopard and a huge boar; he turned to flowing water and a lofty-leafed tree. But we held on unflinchingly, with enduring hearts.
Word by word
The setting
The men have waited for the god to fall asleep. Now they spring — and Proteus runs through his repertoire of shapes to shake them off: lion, serpent, leopard, boar, running water, a towering tree.
A note on this passage
This is the wrestling-match at the heart of the Proteus episode. The moment the men seize him, the Old Man of the Sea runs through his changes — lion, serpent, leopard, boar — then abandons animal shape altogether for running water and a towering tree. Each form is a bid to make the grip unbearable or absurd, and each fails against four men who were told exactly what to expect.
The undercurrent is what it takes to hold a god to the truth. Proteus is knowledge itself: he will not answer until he is pinned in his own shape, and the price of the answer is refusing to let go through terror, revulsion, and finally the sheer strangeness of grappling water and wood. Menelaus wins prophecy the way the poem values everything — by endurance, τετληότι θυμῷ, the steadfast heart that is Odysseus's own signature virtue.
Read the full commentary — and tap any word for its dictionary entry — in the interlinear reader.
Open Odyssey 4.454 in the full reader
Always open passages in the reader
From the Great Library
You are reading a page of the Odyssey — the whole book is free in our interlinear reader.
The Great Library Project presses the classics in their original languages, glossed word by word — free to read, always. Browse the whole library.
Also on our shelves:
Odyssey 4.454 — The Great Library Project interlinear edition · greatlibraryproject.com/book/odyssey/4.454/