A Wish

ὦ φίλος, οὔ σε ἔολπα κακὸν καὶ ἄναλκιν ἔσεσθαι,
εἰ δή τοι νέῳ ὧδε θεοὶ πομπῆες ἕπονται.
οὐ μὲν γάρ τις ὅδ᾽ ἄλλος Ὀλύμπια δώματ᾽ ἐχόντων,
ἀλλὰ Διὸς θυγάτηρ, κυδίστη Τριτογένεια,
ἥ τοι καὶ πατέρ᾽ ἐσθλὸν ἐν Ἀργείοισιν ἐτίμα.

My friend, I can't imagine your becoming base or weak
if a guiding god attends you in this way even in your youth!
For this one is none other of those who have houses on Olumpos,
but the daughter of Zeus, most great Thrice-born,
who also so honored your noble father among the Greek host.

(Nestor speaking to Telemakhos after the disguised Athenaie turns into an eagle and flies away. Homer, Odyssey III 375–379, as translated—hopefully not too badly!—by yours truly.)

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Greer often asks his readers to imagine the world they want to live in. It seems almost too much to ask for in such degraded times, but if I had any wish for the world, it would be that our angels attend to all of us from our youth in such a way that it would be inconceivable for any of us to become base or weak.

(As a side note, I was quite intrigued to see Athenaie called κυδίστη Τριτογένεια "most great Thrice-born," an epithet so reminiscent of Ἑρμῆς ὁ Τρισμέγιστος "Thrice-greatest Hermes" that I can't believe it to be a coincidence; it is noteworthy that the Pythagoreans called the equilateral triangle Athenaie (Plutarch, Isis and Osiris LXXV), just as I linked it to Hermes. For whatever reason, translators always seem to translate this term in far-fetched ways...)