Odyssey 4.597 · Book 4, lines 597–600
My men wait; let the gift be portable
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αἰνῶς γὰρ μύθοισιν ἔπεσσί τε σοῖσιν ἀκούων τέρπομαι. ἀλλʼ ἤδη μοι ἀνιάζουσιν ἑταῖροι ἐν Πύλῳ ἠγαθέῃ· σὺ δέ με χρόνον ἐνθάδʼ ἐρύκεις. δῶρον δʼ ὅττι κέ μοι δοίης, κειμήλιον ἔστω·
for wondrously I delight in hearing your tales and words; but already my comrades are chafing in holy Pylos; and you keep me here a long while. But whatever gift you would give me, let it be a keepsake.
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The setting
Telemachus finishes his reply: he must return to his crew at Pylos, and asks that whatever Menelaus gives be a storable keepsake — a tactful step toward declining the gift of horses, useless on rocky Ithaca.
A note on this passage
Telemachus completes his refusal with a reason and a request. He loves the listening — the tales and words are a real pleasure — but his men are growing restless where he left them at Pylos, and every day here holds him longer. He must go. Then the deft closing touch: whatever gift Menelaus gives, let it be a keepsake, a thing that can be stored.
The undercurrent is the practical wisdom the poem keeps crediting to him. Behind the polite phrasing is a real refusal of the horses: rocky Ithaca has no plains to race them on, as he will say outright a moment later. He asks instead for a κειμήλιον — literally a ‘thing laid away,’ portable treasure a man keeps. Even in gratitude he thinks like someone who has to sail home over water and up a stony coast.
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