Odyssey 4.464 · Book 4, lines 464–467
Menelaus turns the question back
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ὣς ἔφατʼ, αὐτὰρ ἐγώ μιν ἀμειβόμενος προσέειπον·
Menelaus — οἶσθα, γέρον, τί με ταῦτα παρατροπέων ἐρεείνεις; ὡς δὴ δήθʼ ἐνὶ νήσῳ ἐρύκομαι, οὐδέ τι τέκμωρ εὑρέμεναι δύναμαι, μινύθει δέ μοι ἔνδοθεν ἦτορ.
So he spoke, and I answered him: ‘You know it, old man — why do you question me, putting me off like this? How long I am held here on the island, and can find no way out, while the heart within me dwindles.’
Word by word
The setting
Menelaus answers the Old Man of the Sea. He refuses to be put off: Proteus knows perfectly well why he is here — Menelaus is trapped on the island, unable to find a way home, and his spirit is failing.
A note on this passage
Menelaus does not answer the god's question — he throws it back. Proteus knows exactly what Menelaus wants; the pretended ignorance is a delaying tactic, and Menelaus names it as one. Then he states his case plainly: he is stranded on the island, unable to find any sign of a way home, and his spirit is wearing thin.
The line μινύθει δέ μοι ἔνδοθεν ἦτορ — ‘the heart within me dwindles’ — is the emotional core. This is the great warrior of Troy reduced to a becalmed man watching his own courage drain away on a beach. The Odyssey keeps measuring its heroes not by battle but by the slow attrition of being kept from home, the same wasting that gnaws at Odysseus on Calypso's island.
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