’Telemachus, it is no longer meet that thou shouldest wander far from thy home, leaving thy substance behind thee, and men in thy house so wanton, lest they divide and utterly devour all thy wealth, and thou shalt have gone on a vain journey.  But come, rouse with all haste Menelaus, of the loud war-cry, to send thee on thy way, that thou mayest even yet find thy noble mother in her home.  For even now her father and her brethren bid her wed Eurymachus, for he outdoes all the wooers in his presents, and hath been greatly increasing his gifts of wooing.  So shall she take no treasure from thy house despite thy will.  Thou knowest of what sort is the heart of a woman within her; all her desire is to increase the house of the man who takes her to wife, but of her former children and of her own dear lord she has no more memory once he is dead, and she asks concerning him no more.  Go then, and thyself place all thy substance in the care of the handmaid who seems to thee the best, till the day when the gods shall show thee a glorious bride.  Now another word will I tell thee, and do thou lay it up in thine heart.  The noblest of the wooers lie in wait for thee of purpose, in the strait between Ithaca and rugged Samos, eager to slay thee before thou come to thine own country.  But this, methinks, will never be; yea, sooner shall the earth close over certain of the wooers that devour thy livelihood.  Nay, keep thy well-wrought ship far from those isles, and sail by night as well as day, and he of the immortals who hath thee in his keeping and protection will send thee a fair breeze in thy wake.  But when thou hast touched the nearest shore of Ithaca, send thy ship and all thy company forward to the city, but for thy part seek first the swineherd who keeps thy swine, loyal and at one with thee.  There do thou rest the night, and bid him go to the city to bear tidings of thy coming to the wise Penelope, how that she hath got thee safe, and thou art come up out of Pylos.’

Therewith she departed to high Olympus.  But Telemachus woke the son of Nestor out of sweet sleep, touching him with his heel, and spake to him, saying: 

’Awake, Peisistratus, son of Nestor, bring up thy horses of solid hoof, and yoke them beneath the car, that we may get forward on the road.’

Then Peisistratus, son of Nestor, answered him, saying:  ’Telemachus, we may in no wise drive through the dark night, how eager soever to be gone; nay, soon it will be dawn.  Tarry then, till the hero, the son of Atreus, spear-famed Menelaus, brings gifts, and sets them on the car, and bespeaks thee kindly, and sends thee on thy way.  For of him a guest is mindful all the days of his life, even of the host that shows him loving-kindness.’

So spake he, and anon came the golden-throned Dawn.  And Menelaus, of the loud war cry, drew nigh to them, new risen from his bed, by fair-haired Helen.  Now when the dear son of Odysseus marked him, he made haste and girt his shining doublet about him, and the hero cast a great mantle over his mighty shoulders, and went forth at the door, and Telemachus, dear son of divine Odysseus, came up and spake to Menelaus, saying: