Odyssey 7.240 · Book 7, line 240
Odysseus of many wiles answers
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τὴν δʼ ἀπαμειβόμενος προσέφη πολύμητις Ὀδυσσεύς·
Then answering her spoke Odysseus of many wiles:
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The setting
The narrator's reply-formula introducing Odysseus's response to Arete. His account of Calypso, the raft, the storm, and Nausicaa's help begins in the lines that follow.
A note on this passage
A single formulaic verse, the standard hinge that turns a question into an answer. Its whole work is to hand the floor to Odysseus and to name him, once more, by his defining epithet before he opens his mouth.
That epithet is the point of interest. πολύμητις, ‘of many wiles,’ arrives exactly as he prepares to answer a delicate question from a queen who has half-seen the truth. The formula is doing quiet work: the audience is reminded that the man about to speak is the master of the shaped, careful reply, and that whatever he says next will be true enough and told with great care.
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