Odyssey 4.511 · Book 4, lines 511–513
Ajax drowned; Agamemnon spared
Read the full text in our reader
ὣς ὁ μὲν ἔνθʼ ἀπόλωλεν, ἐπεὶ πίεν ἁλμυρὸν ὕδωρ. σὸς δέ που ἔκφυγε κῆρας ἀδελφεὸς ἠδʼ ὑπάλυξεν ἐν νηυσὶ γλαφυρῇσι· σάωσε δὲ πότνια Ἥρη.
So there he perished, once he drank the salt water. But your brother escaped the death-spirits and got clear of them in his hollow ships; and lady Hera saved him.
Word by word
The setting
Proteus is naming the fates of the Achaean captains for Menelaus. He has just told how Ajax son of Oïleus perished at sea for his blasphemy; now he turns to Menelaus's own brother, Agamemnon.
A note on this passage
Proteus finishes with Locrian Ajax, drowned for his boast, and turns to the man Menelaus most wants word of: his brother Agamemnon. The report opens well. Agamemnon slips the death-spirits at sea, brought through in his hollow ships, and Hera herself keeps him alive.
The rescue is real, but it is not deliverance. Homer lets a goddess save Agamemnon from the water only to hand him to a worse death on dry land, at his own hearth. ‘Saved’ here means no more than ‘delivered to the appointed place.’ The listening Menelaus does not yet know that the good news is the setup for the worst news he will ever hear.
Read the full commentary — and tap any word for its dictionary entry — in the interlinear reader.
Open Odyssey 4.511 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 4.511 — The Great Library Project interlinear edition · greatlibraryproject.com/book/odyssey/4.511/