Odyssey 4.491 · Book 4, lines 491–494
You will not stay dry-eyed
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ὣς ἐφάμην, ὁ δέ μʼ αὐτίκʼ ἀμειβόμενος προσέειπεν·
Proteus — Ἀτρεΐδη, τί με ταῦτα διείρεαι; οὐδέ τί σε χρὴ ἴδμεναι, οὐδὲ δαῆναι ἐμὸν νόον· οὐδέ σέ φημι δὴν ἄκλαυτον ἔσεσθαι, ἐπὴν ἐὺ πάντα πύθηαι.
So I spoke, and at once he, answering, addressed me: Son of Atreus, why question me on these things? You have no need to know it, nor to learn my mind; nor do I think you will long be without weeping, once you learn all of it well.
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The setting
Proteus, the Old Man of the Sea, begins his answer. Menelaus has asked to hear the fates of the returning Greeks; the god warns him that the knowledge will cost him tears before he gives it.
A note on this passage
Proteus does not simply answer. He first warns: there is no need for you to know my mind, and once you have heard it all, you will not for long keep from weeping. Only then does he begin the tally of the dead.
The god almost tells him to stop. To learn the truth is to weep — the poem knows that hearing the catalogue of the lost is itself a kind of mourning. But no one refuses. Menelaus wants the names though they will wound him, and we read on for the same reason: the Odyssey treats grief as the price of knowing what happened, and pays it willingly.
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