Page:The Odyssey of Homer, with the Hymns, Epigrams, and Battle of the Frogs and Mice (Buckley 1853).djvu/268

232 avoided the great crowd of them; but where Mentor sat, and Antiphus, and Alitherses, (who from the beginning were his ancestral friends,) there going, he sat down; and they inquired every thing [of him]. And spear-renowned Piræus came near them, bringing the stranger through the city to the forum: nor was Telemachus a long time turned far away from the stranger, but he stood near him. And him Piræus first addressed in words:

"O Telemachus, quickly incite women [to go] to my house, that I may send away the presents, which Menelaus gave to thee."

But him prudent Telemachus answered in turn: "O Piræus, we know not how these things will be; if the haughty suitors, slaying me secretly in the palace, should divide all my ancestral property, I wish that thou or some one of these should keep and enjoy them; but if I shall plant death and fate for them, then rejoicing bring them to me rejoicing, to my dwelling."

Thus having spoken, he led the much-worn stranger home. But when they reached the well-built house, they laid their cloaks down upon the benches and thrones, and going into the well-polished baths they washed themselves. But when the handmaidens had washed them, and anointed them with oil, they threw woollen cloaks and garments around them, and going out of the bath, they sat clown upon the benches. And a handmaiden bringing water in a beautiful golden ewer, poured it over a silver cauldron, to wash in; and near them she spread a polished table. And the venerable housekeeper bringing food set it near them, placing on it many kinds of meat, gratifying them as well as she could out of what was present. But his mother sat opposite [to him], near a column of the palace, reclining on a bench, twisting her slender distaff. And they stretched forth their hands to the food lying ready before them. But when they had taken away the desire of drinking and eating, prudent Penelope began speaking to them:

"O Telemachus, I indeed ascending to the upper room, will lie down on my bed, which to me has become mournful, ever being bedewed with my tears, since Ulysses went with the Atridæ to Ilium: nor hast thou endured, before the haughty suitors came to this house, to tell me clearly con-