torches:  and of all the women of the household she loved him most, and she had nursed him when a little one.  Then he opened the doors of the well-builded chamber and sat him on the bed and took off his soft doublet, and put it in the wise old woman’s hands.  So she folded the doublet and smoothed it, and hung it on a pin by the jointed bedstead, and went forth on her way from the room, and pulled to the door with the silver handle, and drew home the bar with the thong.  There, all night through, wrapped in a fleece of wool, he meditated in his heart upon the journey that Athene had showed him.

Book II

  Telemachus complains in vain, and borrowing a ship, goes
  secretly to Pylos by night.  And how he was there received.

Now so soon as early Dawn shone forth, the rosy-fingered, the dear son of Odysseus gat him up from his bed, and put on his raiment and cast his sharp sword about his shoulder, and beneath his smooth feet he bound his goodly sandals, and stept forth from his chamber in presence like a god.  And straightway he bade the clear-voiced heralds to call the long-haired Achaeans to the assembly.  And the heralds called the gathering, and the Achaeans were assembled quickly.  Now when they were gathered and come together, he went on his way to the assembly holding in his hand a spear of bronze,—­not alone he went, for two swift hounds bare him company.  Then Athene shed on him a wondrous grace, and all the people marvelled at him as he came.  And he sat him in his father’s seat and the elders gave place to him.

Then the lord Aegyptus spake among them first; bowed was he with age, and skilled in things past number.  Now for this reason he spake that his dear son, the warrior Antiphus, had gone in the hollow ships to Ilios of the goodly steeds; but the savage Cyclops slew him in his hollow cave, and made of him then his latest meal.  Three other sons Aegyptus had, and one consorted with the wooers, namely Eurynomus, but two continued in their father’s fields; yet even so forgat he not that son, still mourning and sorrowing.  So weeping for his sake he made harangue and spake among them: 

’Hearken now to me, ye men of Ithaca, to the word that I shall say.  Never hath our assembly or session been since the day that goodly Odysseus departed in the hollow ships.  And now who was minded thus to assemble us?  On what man hath such sore need come, of the young men or of the elder born?  Hath he heard some tidings of the host now returning, which he might plainly declare to us, for that he first learned thereof, or doth he show forth and tell some other matter of the common weal?  Methinks he is a true man—­good luck be with him!  Zeus vouchsafe him some good thing in his turn, even all his heart’s desire!’

So spake he, and the dear son of Odysseus was glad at the omen of the word; nor sat he now much longer, but he burned to speak, and he stood in mid assembly; and the herald Peisenor, skilled in sage counsels, placed the staff in his hands.  Then he spake, accosting the old man first: