καὶ ἂψ εἰς ἡμέας ἔλθοι / ἀσκηθὴς
When he proposes the spying mission, Nestor includes the crucial completion of the mission: namely, that the spy return to report what he has found out. The return of the spy ‘unscathed’ connects to the greater theme, and it shares concepts with the theme of the journey. One concern with any of these nighttime or secret operations, such as spying missions or ambushes, is that, if those who undertake them do not return, their comrades may never know what happened to them. Whether, how, and by whom a spy has been killed cannot be verified, and it is such knowledge that allows a warrior to be buried and honored after death. This lack of knowledge provides a strong contrast to daytime battle, in which one comrade will see another fall, and will subsequently go to protect his corpse or to attack his killer in retaliation. That sequence in battle is a pattern we see again and again in the Iliad. The same contrast between a death in open battle (bringing honor) and a death that occurs on a journey (resulting in an inability to bury and honor the person lost because of a lack of knowledge as well as the lack of the corpse) is expressed by loved ones of Odysseus in the Odyssey. The sentiment is first expressed by Telemakhos:
νῦν δ’ ἑτέρως ἐβόλοντο θεοὶ κακὰ μητιόωντες,
235 οἳ κεῖνον μὲν ἄϊστον ἐποίησαν περὶ πάντων
ἀνθρώπων, ἐπεὶ οὔ κε θανόντι περ ὧδ’ ἀκαχοίμην,
εἰ μετὰ οἷσ’ ἑτάροισι δάμη Τρώων ἐνὶ δήμῳ,
ἠὲ φίλων ἐν χερσίν, ἐπεὶ πόλεμον τολύπευσε.
τῶ κέν οἱ τύμβον μὲν ἐποίησαν Παναχαιοί,
240 ἠδέ κε καὶ ᾧ παιδὶ μέγα κλέος ἤρατ’ ὀπίσσω.
νῦν δέ μιν ἀκλειῶς Ἅρπυιαι ἀνηρέψαντο·
οἴχετ’ ἄϊστος ἄπυστος, ἐμοὶ δ’ ὀδύνας τε γόους τε
κάλλιπεν·
Odyssey 1.234–243
But now the gods have willed it otherwise, devising evils,
235 who have made that man [Odysseus] unseen beyond all
mortals, since I would not grieve this way at his death
if among his comrades he was subdued in the district of the Trojans
or in the hands of his friends, when he had finished war.
All the Achaeans would have made a burial mound for him,
240 and he would have won great fame [kleos] even for his child in the future.
But now the Arpuiai whirlwinds have snatched him up without fame [kleos].
He is gone, unseen, unheard of. And for me pain and laments
he left behind.
Later (Odyssey 14.365–372), Eumaios says something very similar in response to the disguised Odysseus’ story about the fate of Odysseus. He, too, contrasts the unknown circumstances of Odysseus’ presumed death at sea with a death in battle, after which a man’s comrades can bury him. A known death in battle brings kleos, which, having as its root meaning ‘something heard’ (see Nagy 1979:16, §2n3), is contrasted in Telemakhos’ words not only with an “unglorious” death (Odyssey 1.241) but also with Odysseus himself, who is “unseen” and “unheard of” (Odyssey 1.242). In Iliad 10, in the same line as ἀσκηθής (10.212), Nestor promises kleos to the man who undertakes this mission, but the return is necessary for that kleos to come about. For if a man were to go out on a nighttime spying mission, or an ambush, and not come back, he, too, would be unseen, unheard of, and could not be buried or honored properly.
So the need to complete the mission, the need for a return, is one way that a spying mission resembles a journey in epic diction. Coming back unscathed, ἀσκηθής, is used elsewhere in Homeric epic of a return home or of some other completion of a journey. It is used prominently in Odyssey 5 of the need to have both Telemakhos (Odyssey 5.26) and Odysseus (Odyssey 5.144, 5.168) return to their fatherland (πατρίδα γαῖαν). At the very beginning of the story of his wanderings, Odysseus says that he would have returned home unscathed if the sea currents had not prevented him from making his way to Ithaka (Odyssey 9.79–81). Thus arriving unscathed seems especially associated with sailing journeys, as Odysseus also uses it in one of his Cretan lies, in this case for an easy sailing from Crete to Egypt (Odyssey 14.255; cf. Solon fr. 19 [West], who says that Kypris sent him home unscathed [askēthēs] in a fast ship for a good homecoming [nostos] to his own land). In one additional case in the Odyssey, Odysseus tells Achilles that Neoptolemos was very successful in battle and ambush (see pp. 47–48), and later adds that he was never hurt in the fighting—he was ἀσκηθής, never touched by a weapon. Although the context has referred to both battle and ambush, the word actually describes Neoptolemos as he boards his ship for the journey home, again displaying the connection between sailing journeys and nostos. The “Odyssean” language that many scholars have noted in Book 10, and have even cited as proof of its non-Iliadic nature, may be a thematic result, not only of the greater prominence of ambush in the Odyssey, but also of this thematic overlap between spying missions or ambushes and journeys, especially journeys home and those over the sea.
In the Iliad, ἀσκηθής is used in one other context, and that is, in fact, daytime battle. As Achilles prays to Zeus that Patroklos will be successful in saving the Achaeans and their ships from the Trojan onslaught, he asks as well that Patroklos then return unscathed to him at the swift ships: ἀσκηθής μοι ἔπειτα θοὰς ἐπὶ νῆας ἵκοιτο (Iliad 16.247). Patroklos is not going on an ambush here, and there is no concern that what happens to him will be unknown. Instead, the fact that he is going as Achilles’ substitute must also be a special kind of departure for battle, and the desire for the substitute to come back unscathed evokes this same word (see Nagy 1979:292–295 for Patroklos as a ritual substitute for Achilles in this battle). Zeus’ reaction is to grant the first part of Achilles’ prayer, but not the safe return: σόον δ’ ἀνένευσε μάχης ἐξαπονέεσθαι (Iliad 16.252). Petegorsky (1982:220–221) argues that these two uses of ἀσκηθής in the Iliad highlight the isolation of Patroklos going into battle without Achilles, in contrast to the pairing of Diomedes and Odysseus.