Then Piraeus first spake to him, saying:  ’Bestir the women straightway to go to my house, that I may send thee the gifts that Menelaus gave thee.’

Then wise Telemachus answered him, saying:  ’Piraeus, we know not how these matters will fall out.  If the lordly wooers shall slay me by guile in the halls, and divide among them the heritage of my father, then I should wish thee to keep and enjoy the gifts thyself, rather than any of these.  But if I shall sow the seeds of death and fate for the wooers, then gladly bring me to the house the gifts that I will gladly take.’

Therewith he led the travel-worn stranger to the house.  Now when they came to the fair-lying palace, they laid aside their mantles on the chairs and high seats, and went to the polished baths, and bathed them.  So when the maidens had bathed them and anointed them with olive oil, and cast about them thick mantles and doublets, they came forth from the baths, and sat upon the seats.  Then the handmaid bare water for the hands in a goodly golden ewer, and poured it forth over a silver basin to wash withal, and drew to their side a polished table.  And the grave dame bare wheaten bread, and set it by them, and laid on the board many dainties, giving freely of such things as she had by her.  And the mother of Telemachus sat over against him by the pillar of the hall, leaning against a chair, and spinning the slender threads from the yarn.  And 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, the wise Penelope first spake among them: 

’Telemachus, verily I will go up to my upper chamber, and lay me in my bed, the place of my groanings, that is ever watered by my tears, since the day that Odysseus departed with the sons of Atreus for Ilios.  Yet thou hadst no care to tell me clearly, before the lordly wooers came to this house, concerning the returning of thy father, if haply thou hast heard thereof.’

And wise Telemachus answered her, saying:  ’Yea now, mother, I will tell thee all the truth.  We went to Pylos and to Nestor, the shepherd of the people, and he received me in his lofty house, and was diligent to entreat me lovingly, as a father might his son that had but newly come from strange lands after many years; even so diligently he cared for me with his renowned sons.  Yet he said that he had heard no word from any man on earth concerning Odysseus, of the hardy heart, whether alive or dead.  But he sent me forward on my way with horses and a chariot, well compact, to Menelaus, son of Atreus, spearman renowned.  There I saw Argive Helen, for whose sake the Argives and Trojans bore much travail by the gods’ designs.  Then straightway Menelaus, of the loud war-cry, asked me on what quest I had come to goodly Lacedaemon.  And I told him all the truth.  Then he made answer, and spake, saying: