Odyssey 4.638 · Book 4, lines 638–640
The suitors' astonishment
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ὣς ἔφαθʼ, οἱ δʼ ἀνὰ θυμὸν ἐθάμβεον· οὐ γὰρ ἔφαντο ἐς Πύλον οἴχεσθαι Νηλήιον, ἀλλά που αὐτοῦ ἀγρῶν ἢ μήλοισι παρέμμεναι ἠὲ συβώτῃ.
So he spoke, and they were amazed in their hearts; for they did not suppose he had gone to Pylos, the city of Neleus, but somewhere thereabouts was out in the fields, or among the sheep, or with the swineherd.
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The setting
Noemon has finished. The narrator turns to the suitors' reaction: they had no idea Telemachus had actually sailed, assuming he was still somewhere on the estate.
A note on this passage
The suitors are caught flat-footed. They had pictured Telemachus loitering close to home — checking the flocks, dawdling with the swineherd — the harmless movements of a boy with nowhere to go. The list of guesses measures how badly they misread him.
Underneath is the swineherd, named here in passing: Eumaeus, on his own farm with his pigs. The suitors mention him as the last unimportant place a boy might be. The poem is quietly planting the man who will, in the end, stand at Odysseus's side when the hall is cleared.
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