Odyssey 4.481 · Book 4, lines 481–484
The order to turn back
Read the full text in our reader
Menelaus — ὣς ἔφατʼ, αὐτὰρ ἐμοί γε κατεκλάσθη φίλον ἦτορ, οὕνεκά μʼ αὖτις ἄνωγεν ἐπʼ ἠεροειδέα πόντον Αἴγυπτόνδʼ ἰέναι, δολιχὴν ὁδὸν ἀργαλέην τε. ἀλλὰ καὶ ὣς μύθοισιν ἀμειβόμενος προσέειπον·
So he spoke, but my dear heart was broken within me, because he bade me go back again over the misty sea to Egypt, a long, grievous road. But even so I answered him with words:
Word by word
The setting
Menelaus is telling Telemachus how, pinned on the island of Pharos, he wrestled the shape-shifting sea-god Proteus for the secret of his homecoming. Proteus has just told him he must first sail all the way back to Egypt to make amends to the gods. Menelaus's heart sinks at the length of the road — but he agrees.
A note on this passage
Proteus has named the price of Menelaus's homecoming: the whole long voyage back to Egypt, done over again. The words land like a blow — κατεκλάσθη φίλον ἦτορ, ‘my dear heart was broken.’ And yet, in the next breath, Menelaus answers and agrees to it.
The undercurrent is how costly even a granted homecoming is. Menelaus does come home — he is the man telling the tale, rich in his Spartan hall — but the poem will not let the return look free. Every nostos in the Odyssey is bought, and here we watch the buyer flinch and pay anyway.
Read the full commentary — and tap any word for its dictionary entry — in the interlinear reader.
Open Odyssey 4.481 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 4.481 — The Great Library Project interlinear edition · greatlibraryproject.com/book/odyssey/4.481/