Then the swineherd, a master of men, answered him:  ’Yea verily, she abides with patient spirit in thy halls, and wearily for her the nights wane always and the days, in shedding of tears.’

So he spake and took from him the spear of bronze.  Then Telemachus passed within and crossed the threshold of stone.  As he came near, his father Odysseus arose from his seat to give him place; but Telemachus, on his part, stayed him and spake saying: 

’Be seated, stranger, and we will find a seat some other where in our steading, and there is a man here to set it for us.’

So he spake, and Odysseus went back and sat him down again.  And the swineherd strewed for Telemachus green brushwood below, and a fleece thereupon, and there presently the dear son of Odysseus sat him down.  Next the swineherd set by them platters of roast flesh, the fragments that were left from the meal of yesterday.  And wheaten bread he briskly heaped up in baskets, and mixed the honey-sweet wine in a goblet of ivy wood, and himself sat down over against divine Odysseus.  So they stretched forth their hands upon the good cheer set before them.  Now when they had put from them the desire of meat and drink, Telemachus spake to the goodly swineherd, saying: 

’Father, whence came this stranger to thee?  How did sailors bring him to Ithaca? and who did they avow them to be?  For in no wise, I deem, did he come hither by land.’

Then didst thou make answer, swineherd Eumaeus:  ’Yea now, my son, I will tell thee all the truth.  Of wide Crete he avows him to be by lineage, and he says that round many cities of mortals he has wandered at adventure; even so has some god spun for him the thread of fate.  But now, as a runaway from a ship of the Thesprotians, has he come to my steading, and I will give him to thee for thy man; do with him as thou wilt; he avows him for thy suppliant.’

Then wise Telemachus answered him, saying:  ’Eumaeus, verily a bitter word is this that thou speakest.  How indeed shall I receive this guest in my house?  Myself I am young, and trust not yet to my strength of hands to defend me against the man who does violence without a cause.  And my mother has divisions of heart, whether to abide here with me and keep the house, respecting the bed of her lord and the voice of the people, or straightway to go with whomsoever of the Achaeans that woo her in the halls is the best man, and gives most bridal gifts.  But behold, as for this guest of thine, now that he has come to thy house, I will clothe him in a mantle and a doublet, goodly raiment, and I will give him a two-edged sword, and shoes for his feet, and send him on his way, whithersoever his heart and his spirit bid him go.  Or, if thou wilt, hold him here in the steading and take care of him, and raiment I will send hither, and all manner of food to eat, that he be not ruinous to thee and to thy fellows.  But thither into the company of the wooers would I not suffer him to go, for they are exceeding full of infatuate insolence, lest they mock at him, and that would be a sore grief to me.  And hard it is for one man, how valiant soever, to achieve aught among a multitude, for verily they are far the stronger.’