Then wise Telemachus answered him, saying:  ’Antinous, I may in no wise thrust forth from the house, against her will, the woman that bare me, that reared me:  while as for my father he is abroad on the earth, whether he be alive or dead.  Moreover it is hard for me to make heavy restitution to Icarius, as needs I must, if of mine own will I send my mother away.  For I shall have evil at his hand, at the hand of her father, and some god will give me more besides, for my mother will call down the dire Avengers as she departs from the house, and I shall have blame of men; surely then I will never speak this word.  Nay, if your own heart, even yours, is indignant, quit ye my halls, and busy yourselves with other feasts, eating your own substance, and going in turn from house to house.  But if ye deem this a likelier and a better thing, that one man’s goods should perish without atonement, then waste ye as ye will:  and I will call upon the everlasting gods, if haply Zeus may grant that acts of recompense be made:  so should ye hereafter perish in the halls without atonement.’

So spake Telemachus, and in answer to his prayer did Zeus, of the far borne voice, send forth two eagles in flight, from on high, from the mountain-crest.  Awhile they flew as fleet as the blasts of the wind, side by side, with straining of their pinions.  But when they had now reached the mid assembly, the place of many voices, there they wheeled about and flapped their strong wings, and looked down upon the heads of all, and destruction was in their gaze.  Then tore they with their talons each the other’s cheeks and neck on every side, and so sped to the right across the dwellings and the city of the people.  And the men marvelled at the birds when they had sight of them, and pondered in their hearts the things that should come to pass.  Yea and the old man, the lord Halitherses son of Mastor spake among them, for he excelled his peers in knowledge of birds, and in uttering words of fate.  With good will he made harangue and spake among them: 

’Hearken to me now, ye men of Ithaca, to the word that I shall say:  and mainly to the wooers do I show forth and tell these things, seeing that a mighty woe is rolling upon them.  For Odysseus shall not long be away from his friends, nay, even now, it may be, he is near, and sowing the seeds of death and fate for these men, every one; and he will be a bane to many another likewise of us who dwell in clear-seen Ithaca.  But long ere that falls out let us advise us how we may make an end of their mischief; yea, let them of their own selves make an end, for this is the better way for them, as will soon be seen.  For I prophesy not as one unproved, but with sure knowledge; verily, I say, that for him all things now are come to pass, even as I told him, what time the Argives embarked for Ilios, and with them went the wise Odysseus.  I said that after sore affliction, with the loss of all his company, unknown to all, in the twentieth year he should come home.  And behold, all these things now have an end.’