Odyssey 4.671 · Book 4, lines 671–672
In the strait, for his father's sake
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Antinous — ἐν πορθμῷ Ἰθάκης τε Σάμοιό τε παιπαλοέσσης, ὡς ἂν ἐπισμυγερῶς ναυτίλλεται εἵνεκα πατρός.
in the strait between Ithaca and rugged Samos, so that wretchedly he may voyage for his father's sake.
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The setting
Antinous finishes naming the spot for the ambush — the channel between Ithaca and its neighbor island — and the bitter point of it: to make the boy's search for his father end in ruin.
A note on this passage
Antinous fixes the killing-ground: the narrow channel between Ithaca and rocky Samos (Samē), where a homebound ship must pass and can be caught. The plan is precise, local, practical.
The undercurrent lies in the last phrase, εἵνεκα πατρός, ‘for his father's sake.’ The whole voyage is an act of filial love — a son risking the sea to learn whether his father lives. Antinous names that motive only to turn it into the reason for the boy's death. The poem lets the suitor say the pious thing and mean the murderous one in the same breath.
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