Page:The Odyssey of Homer, with the Hymns, Epigrams, and Battle of the Frogs and Mice (Buckley 1853).djvu/44

8 of Ulysses himself: for thou art exceedingly like him, as to thy head and thy beauteous eyes; since we frequently kept company with one another before he embarked for Troy, where also others, the best of the Argives, went in their hollow ships; but since that time I have neither seen Ulysses, nor has he [seen] me."

But her prudent Telemachus answered in turn: "I will inform thee, O stranger, very accurately; my mother, indeed, says that I am his, but I know not; for no one ever knew his own father. O would that I were the son of a happy man, upon whom old age had come [when] in the enjoyment of his possessions; but now they say that I was born from him, who is the most ill-fated of mortal men; since thou askest this of me."

But him the blue-eyed goddess Minerva again addressed: "The gods indeed have not ordained thy race to be ignoble hereafter; since Penelope has borne thee such. But come, tell me this and relate it truly, What feast and what assembly is this? what necessity urges you? is it a banquet or a marriage? since this is not a collation; for they seem to me, being exceedingly insolent, to banquet in the house, and any prudent man, coming amongst them, would be wrath, beholding many disgraceful things."

But her prudent Telemachus answered in turn: "O stranger, since thou askest and inquirest these things of me, this house formerly promised to be rich and illustrious, whilst that man was still at home; but now the gods have willed it otherwise, planning evil things, who have made him to be unseen above all men; since I should not grieve so much for him when dead, had he been overcome with his companions amongst the Trojans, or in the hands of his friends, after he had brought the war to an end; then indeed all the