Odyssey 4.804 · Book 4, lines 804–807
“You sleep — the gods forbid your grief”
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Iphthime — εὕδεις, Πηνελόπεια, φίλον τετιημένη ἦτορ; οὐ μέν σʼ οὐδὲ ἐῶσι θεοὶ ῥεῖα ζώοντες κλαίειν οὐδʼ ἀκάχησθαι, ἐπεί ῥʼ ἔτι νόστιμός ἐστι σὸς παῖς· οὐ μὲν γάρ τι θεοῖς ἀλιτήμενός ἐστι.
Are you sleeping, Penelope, grieved in your dear heart? The gods who live at ease do not allow you to weep or to grieve, since your son is still destined to return; for he is no sinner against the gods.
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The setting
The phantom, wearing the face of Penelope's sister Iphthime, speaks its comfort into the dream. It tells the sleeping Penelope that Telemachus will come home safe.
A note on this passage
The dream-sister speaks reassurance. It finds Penelope asleep and grieving, and tells her plainly to stop: the gods, who live without effort, do not mean her to weep and mourn, because her son is still fated to come home — and he has done nothing to offend the gods who guard him.
The comfort rests on the poem's own theology. Safety is stated as blamelessness: Telemachus will return because he is no ἀλιτήμενος, no sinner against heaven — the same principle Zeus announces at the poem's opening, that men suffer for their own transgressions. But the phantom keeps its source hidden. It says 'the gods allow' and never says that a goddess made this dream and sent it; Penelope is told she is watched over, not that Athena herself is standing in the room.
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