Odysseus returning to his own house, so long none could be wroth that ye waited and held back the wooers in the halls, for so had it been better, if Odysseus had returned and come back to his own home.  But now the event is plain, that he will return no more.  Go then, sit by thy mother and tell her all, namely, that she must wed the best man that wooes her, and whose gives most gifts; so shalt thou with gladness live on the heritage of thy father, eating and drinking, while she cares for another’s house.’

Then wise Telemachus answered, and said:  ’Nay by Zeus, Agelaus, and by the griefs of my father, who far away methinks from Ithaca has perished or goes wandering, in nowise do I delay my mother’s marriage; nay, I bid her be married to what man she will, and withal I offer gifts without number.  But I do indeed feel shame to drive her forth from the hall, despite her will, by a word of compulsion; God forbid that ever this should be.’

So spake Telemachus, but among the wooers Pallas Athene roused laughter unquenchable, and drave their wits wandering.  And now they were laughing with alien lips, and blood-bedabbled was the flesh they ate, and their eyes were filled with tears and their soul was fain of lamentation.  Then the godlike Theoclymenus spake among them: 

’Ah, wretched men, what woe is this ye suffer?  Shrouded in night are your heads and your faces and your knees, and kindled is the voice of wailing, and all cheeks are wet with tears, and the walls and the fair main-beams of the roof are sprinkled with blood.  And the porch is full, and full is the court, of ghosts that hasten hellwards beneath the gloom, and the sun has perished out of heaven, and an evil mist has overspread the world.’

So spake he, and they all laughed sweetly at him.  Then Eurymachus, son of Polybus, began to speak to them, saying: 

’The guest that is newly come from a strange land is beside himself.  Quick, ye young men, and convey him forth out of doors, that he may go to the place of the gathering, since here he finds it dark as night.’

Then godlike Theoclymenus answered him:  ’Eurymachus, in nowise do I seek guides of thee to send me on my way.  Eyes have I, and ears, and both my feet, and a stable mind in my breast of no mean fashioning.  With these I will go forth, for I see evil coming on you, which not one man of the wooers may avoid or shun, of all you who in the house of divine Odysseus deal insolently with men and devise infatuate deeds.’

Therewith he went forth from out the fair-lying halls, and came to Peiraeus who received him gladly.  Then all the wooers, looking one at the other, provoked Telemachus to anger, laughing at his guests.  And thus some one of the haughty youths would speak: 

’Telemachus, no man is more luckless than thou in his guests, seeing thou keepest such a filthy wanderer, whosoever he be, always longing for bread and wine, and skilled in no peaceful work nor any deed of war, but a mere burden of the earth.  And this other fellow again must stand up to play the seer!  Nay, but if thou wouldest listen to me, much better it were.  Let us cast these strangers on board a benched ship, and send them to the Sicilians, whence they would fetch thee their price.’ {*}