Page:Homer. The Odyssey (IA homerodyssey00collrich).pdf/30

20 with a taunting compliment upon the new character in which he has just come out. "He means to claim for himself the sovereignty of the island, as his father's heir, no doubt; but the gods forbid that Ithaca should ever come under the rule of so fierce a despot!" Telemachus makes answer that he will at all events rule his father's house. Upon this, Eurynomus, another leading spirit among the rivals—a smoother-tongued and more cautious individual—soothes the angry youth with what seems a plausible recognition of his rights, in order that he may get an answer to a question on which he feels an interest not unmixed, as we may easily understand, with some secret apprehension. "Who was this traveller from over sea? and—did he happen to bring any news of Ulysses?" But Telemachus has learnt subtlety as well as wisdom from the disguised goddess. He gives the name assumed by his visitor, Mentes, an old friend of the house. But as to his father's return, the oracles of the gods and the reports of men all agree in pronouncing it to have now become hopeless. So the revel is renewed till nightfall; and while the feasters go off to their own quarters somewhere near at hand, Telemachus retires to his chamber (separate, apparently, from the main building), where his old nurse Eurycleia tends him with a careful affection, as though he were still a child, folding and hanging up the vest of fine linen which he takes off when he lies down to sleep, and drawing the bolt of the chamber door through its silver ring when she leaves him.

The council of notables is summoned for the morrow.