Odyssey 4.524 · Book 4, lines 524–528
The watchman on the headland
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τὸν δʼ ἄρʼ ἀπὸ σκοπιῆς εἶδε σκοπός, ὅν ῥα καθεῖσεν Αἴγισθος δολόμητις ἄγων, ὑπὸ δʼ ἔσχετο μισθὸν χρυσοῦ δοιὰ τάλαντα· φύλασσε δʼ ὅ γʼ εἰς ἐνιαυτόν, μή ἑ λάθοι παριών, μνήσαιτο δὲ θούριδος ἀλκῆς. βῆ δʼ ἴμεν ἀγγελέων πρὸς δώματα ποιμένι λαῶν.
A watchman spied him from his lookout, one whom guileful Aegisthus had set there, leading him on, and promised him as a reward two talents of gold; and he kept watch for a year, lest the king pass by unseen, and remember his rushing valor. So he went to bring word to the palace, to the shepherd of the people.
Word by word
The setting
While the king rejoices, we learn the trap is already a year old. Aegisthus had posted a lookout, paid in gold, to watch the sea for exactly this arrival — and now the man runs to carry the news.
A note on this passage
The scene rewinds to show how long the trap has been laid. Aegisthus did not improvise: he stationed a paid lookout on the headland, promised him two talents of gold, and had him watch the sea for a full year — precisely so the king could not come ashore unobserved.
Homer costs the murder out like a contract: a fixed post, a fixed fee, a fixed fear that a warrior's alertness might yet warn the victim. Then the runner sprints to the palace to announce that ‘the shepherd of the people’ — the formula for a king who guards his flock — has come home. The honorific rides along untouched even as the man wearing it is being handed to the slaughter. The epithet keeps its dignity; the situation has none.
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