Odyssey 4.820 · Book 4, lines 820–823
Many are plotting his death
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τοῦ δʼ ἀμφιτρομέω καὶ δείδια, μή τι πάθῃσιν, ἢ ὅ γε τῶν ἐνὶ δήμῳ, ἵνʼ οἴχεται, ἢ ἐνὶ πόντῳ· δυσμενέες γὰρ πολλοὶ ἐπʼ αὐτῷ μηχανόωνται, ἱέμενοι κτεῖναι πρὶν πατρίδα γαῖαν ἱκέσθαι.
For him I tremble and fear, lest something befall him, whether among the people where he has gone, or on the sea; for many foes are plotting against him, eager to kill him before he reaches his fathers' land.
Word by word
The setting
Penelope closes her speech with the fear that is nearer the truth than she knows. The suitors, learning Telemachus has sailed, have manned a ship to ambush him in the strait on his way home and kill him.
A note on this passage
Penelope's dread spreads to cover every path: land or sea, some harm may take her boy. Then she names the real one — many enemies are plotting against him, eager to kill him before he can come home. It is a mother's worst-case imagining, spoken as if it were only fear.
The chill is that it is not only fear. The audience has just watched the suitors fit out an ambush ship for exactly this: to catch Telemachus in the strait and murder him before he reaches Ithaca. Penelope's nightmare is a plot summary. The dream came to comfort her against a danger that is already real and already moving, and she has guessed its shape from grief alone.
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