’Hearken to me now, ye men of Ithaca, to the word that I shall say.  Henceforth let not any sceptred king be kind and gentle with all his heart, nor minded to do righteously, but let him alway be a hard man and work unrighteousness:  for behold, there is none that remembereth divine Odysseus of the people whose lord he was, and was gentle as a father.  Howsoever, it is not that I grudge the lordly wooers their deeds of violence in the evil devices of their heart.  For at the hazard of their own heads they violently devour the household of Odysseus, and say of him that he will come no more again.  But I am indeed wroth with the rest of the people, to see how ye all sit thus speechless, and do not cry shame upon the wooers, and put them down, ye that are so many and they so few.’

And Leocritus, son of Euenor, answered him, saying:  ’Mentor infatuate, with thy wandering wits, what word hast thou spoken, that callest upon them to put us down?  Nay, it is a hard thing to fight about a feast, and that with men who are even more in number than you.  Though Odysseus of Ithaca himself should come and were eager of heart to drive forth from the hall the lordly wooers that feast throughout his house, yet should his wife have no joy of his coming, though she yearns for him;—­but even there should he meet foul doom, if he fought with those that outnumbered him; so thou hast not spoken aright.  But as for the people, come now, scatter yourselves each one to his own lands, but Mentor and Halitherses will speed this man’s voyage, for they are friends of his house from of old.  Yet after all, methinks, that long time he will abide and seek tidings in Ithaca, and never accomplish this voyage.’

Thus he spake, and in haste they broke up the assembly.  So they were scattered each one to his own dwelling, while the wooers departed to the house of divine Odysseus.

Then Telemachus, going far apart to the shore of the sea, laved his hands in the grey sea water, and prayed unto Athene, saying:  ’Hear me, thou who yesterday didst come in thy godhead to our house, and badest me go in a ship across the misty seas, to seek tidings of the return of my father that is long gone:  but all this my purpose do the Achaeans delay, and mainly the wooers in the naughtiness of their pride.’

So spake he in prayer, and Athene drew nigh him in the likeness of Mentor, in fashion and in voice, and she spake and hailed him in winged words: 

’Telemachus, even hereafter thou shalt not be craven or witless, if indeed thou hast a drop of thy father’s blood and a portion of his spirit; such an one was he to fulfil both word and work.  Nor, if this be so, shall thy voyage be vain or unfulfilled.  But if thou art not the very seed of him and of Penelope, then have I no hope that thou wilt accomplish thy desire.  For few children, truly, are like their father; lo, the more part are worse, yet a few are better than the sire.  But since thou shalt not