Then the goddess, grey-eyed Athene, spake to him again:  ’Yea, herein hast thou spoken aright, dear father:  and Telemachus may well obey thee, for before all things this is meet.  Behold, he shall now depart with thee, that he may sleep in thy halls; as for me I will go to the black ship, that I may cheer my company and tell them all.  For I avow me to be the one elder among them; those others are but younger men, who follow for love of him, all of them of like age with the high-souled Telemachus.  There will I lay me down by the black hollow ship this night; but in the morning I will go to the Cauconians high of heart, where somewhat of mine is owing to me, no small debt nor of yesterday.  But do thou send this man upon his way with thy chariot and thy son, since he hath come to thy house, and give him horses the lightest of foot and chief in strength.’

Therewith grey-eyed Athene departed in the semblance of a sea-eagle; and amazement fell on all that saw it, and the old man he marvelled when his eyes beheld it.  And he took the hand of Telemachus and spake and hailed him: 

’My friend, methinks that thou wilt in no sort be a coward and a weakling, if indeed in thy youth the gods thus follow with thee to be thy guides.  For truly this is none other of those who keep the mansions of Olympus, save only the daughter of Zeus, the driver of the spoil, the maiden Trito-born, she that honoured thy good father too among the Argives.  Nay be gracious, queen, and vouchsafe a goodly fame to me, even to me and to my sons and to my wife revered.  And I in turn will sacrifice to thee a yearling heifer, broad of brow, unbroken, which man never yet hath led beneath the yoke.  Such an one will I offer to thee, and gild her horns with gold.’

Even so he spake in prayer, and Pallas Athene heard him.  Then Nestor of Gerenia, lord of chariots, led them, even his sons and the husbands of his daughters, to his own fair house.  But when they had reached this prince’s famous halls, they sat down all orderly on seats and high chairs; and when they were come, the old man mixed well for them a bowl of sweet wine, which now in the eleventh year from the vintaging the housewife opened, and unloosed the string that fastened the lid.  The old man let mix a bowl thereof, and prayed instantly to Athene as he poured forth before her, even to the daughter of Zeus, lord of the aegis.

But after they had poured forth and had drunken to their heart’s content, these went each one to his own house to lie down to rest.  But Nestor of Gerenia, lord of chariots, would needs have Telemachus, son of divine Odysseus, to sleep there on a jointed bedstead beneath the echoing gallery, and by him Peisistratus of the good ashen spear, leader of men, who alone of his sons was yet unwed in his halls.  As for him he slept within the inmost chamber of the lofty house, and the lady his wife arrayed for him bedstead and bedding.