The Odyssey Proteus Quotes

"Eidothea, now,
had slipped beneath the sea’s engulfing folds
but back from the waves she came with four sealskins,
all freshly stripped, to deceive her father blind.
She scooped out lurking-places deep in the sand
and sat there waiting as we approached her post,
then couching us side-by-side she flung a sealskin
over each man’s back. Now there was an ambush
that would have overpowered us all – overpowering,
true, the awful reek of all those sea-fed brutes!"

– Homer

The Odyssey, Book 4, lines 487-497. Menelaus tells Telemachus how he and his men were trapped in Egypt and were helped by sea goddess Eidothea, daughter of the sea god Proteus. Proteus had information on how they could get home and they were advised by Eidothea to disguise themselves as seals to ambush him.

"Ajax, now, went down with his long-oared fleet.
First Poseidon drove him onto the cliffs of Gyrae,
looming cliffs, then saved him from the breakers
he’d have escaped his doom, too, despite Athena’s hate,
if he hadn’t flung that brazen boast, the mad blind fool.
‘In the teeth of the gods,’ he bragged, ‘I have escaped
the ocean’s sheer abyss!’ Poseidon heard that frantic vaunt
and the god grasped his trident in both his massive hands
and struck the Gyraean headland, hacked the rock in two,
and the giant stump stood fast but the jagged spur
where Ajax perched at first, the raving madman –
toppling into the sea, it plunged him down, down
in the vast, seething depths. And so he died,
having drunk his fill of brine."

– Homer

The Odyssey, Book 4, lines 560-573. Proteus the sea god and seer speaks to Menelaus about the death of Little Ajax (also known as Ajax the Lesser). We hear how Ajax was doomed by his excessive pride. He angered Poseidon with his boast "in the teeth of the gods…I have escaped the ocean’s sheer abyss." So the god of the sea drowned him for his hubris. Proteus’ story refers to Little Ajax, son of Oileus, not to be confused with Telamon’s son, Great Ajax, who killed himself after the fall of Troy. The story goes that Little Ajax tried to rape King Priam’s daughter Cassandra in the temple of Athena, where she took refuge. When the Achaeans failed to punish him, Athena had wind storms blow him off course on his way home. Having almost reached home, Poseidon killed Little Ajax.

"But about your own destiny, Menelaus,
dear to Zeus, it’s not for you to die
and meet your fate in the stallion-land of Argos,
no, the deathless ones will sweep you off to the world’s end,
the Elysian Fields, where gold-haired Rhadamanthys waits
where life glides on in immortal ease for mortal man;
no snow, no winter onslaught, never a downpour there,
but night and day the Ocean River sends up breezes,
singing winds of the West refreshing all mankind.
All this because you are Helen’s husband now
the gods count you the son-in-law of Zeus."

– Homer

The Odyssey, Book 4, lines 631-641. Proteus, the prophetic shape shifting sea god, tells Menelaus that he will not die and end up a shade in Hades. Instead he is fated to live eternity in the heavenly Eylsian Fields – because he is dear to Zeus and is husband of Zeus’ daughter Helen. In Greek mythology the Elysian Fields are the final resting place of the souls of the heroic and virtuous.
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