Page:The Iliad and Odyssey of Homer (IA iliadodysseyofho02home).pdf/371

Book XV. Among my shepherds, and, (my rural works Survey'd,) at eve will to the town return. To-morrow will I set before you wine And plenteous viands, wages of your toil. To whom the godlike Theoclymenus. Whither must I, my son? who, of the Chiefs Of rugged Ithaca, shall harbour me? Shall I to thine and to thy mother's house? Then thus Telemachus, discrete, replied. I would invite thee to proceed at once To our abode, since nought should fail thee there Of kind reception, but it were a course Now not adviseable; for I must myself, Be absent, neither would my mother's eyes Behold thee, so unfrequent she appears Before the suitors, shunning whom, she sits Weaving continual at the palace-top. But I will name to thee another Chief Whom thou may'st seek, Eurymachus, the son Renown'd of prudent Polybus, whom all The people here reverence as a God. Far noblest of them all is he, and seeks More ardent than his rivals far, to wed My mother, and to fill my father's throne. But, He who dwells above, Jove only knows If some disastrous day be not ordain'd For them, or ere those nuptials shall arrive.