The Adventures of Odysseus and The Tales of Troy | Page 6

the web she was working at was woven, she would choose a husband
from amongst us. "Laertes, the father of Odysseus, is alone with none to care for him
living or dead," said she to us. "I must weave a shroud for him against the time which
cannot now be far off when old Laertes dies. Trouble me not while I do this. For if he
should die and there be no winding-sheet to wrap him round all the women of the land
would blame me greatly."
'We were not oppressive and we left the lady Penelope to weave the web, and the months
have gone by and still the web is not woven. But even now we have heard from one of
her maids how Penelope tries to finish her task. What she weaves in the daytime she
unravels at night. Never, then, can the web be finished and so does she try to cheat us.
'She has gained praise from the people for doing this. "How wise is Penelope," they say,
"with her devices." Let her be satisfied with their praise then, and leave us alone. We too
have our devices. We will live at her house and eat and drink there and give orders to her
servants and we shall see which will satisfy her best--to give an answer or to let the
wealth of her house be wasted.
'As for you, Telemachus, I have these words to say to you. Lead your mother from your
father's house and to the house of her father, Icarius. Tell Icarius to give her in marriage
to the one she chooses from amongst us. Do this and no more goods will be wasted in the
house that will be yours,'
Then Telemachus rose and said, 'Never will I lead my mother out of a house that my
father brought her into. Quit my father's house, or, as I tell you now, the day may come
when a doom will fall upon you there for your insolence in it.'
And even as Telemachus spoke, two eagles from a mountain crest flew over the place
where the council was being held. They wheeled above and flapped their wings and
looked down upon the crowd with destruction in their gaze. They tore each other with
their talons, and then flew away across the City.
An old man who was there, Halitherses by name, a man skilled in the signs made by birds,
told those who were around what was foreshown by the combat of the eagles in the air.

'Odysseus,' he said, 'is not far from his friends. He will return, and his return will mean
affliction for those who insult his house. Now let them make an end of their mischief.'
But the wooers only laughed at the old man, telling him he should go home and prophesy
to his children.
Then arose another old man whose name was Mentor, and he was one who had been a
friend and companion of Odysseus. He spoke to the council saying:
'Never again need a King be gentle in his heart. For kind and gentle to you all was your
King, Odysseus. And now his son asks you for help and you do not hurry to give it him.
It is not so much an affliction to me that these wooers waste his goods as that you do not
rise up to forbid it. But let them persist in doing it on the hazard of their own heads. For a
doom will come on them, I say. And I say again to you of the council: you are many and
the wooers are few: Why then do you not put them away from the house of Odysseus?'
But no one in the council took the side of Telemachus and Halitherses and Mentor--so
powerful were the wooers and so fearful of them were the men of the council. The
wooers looked at Telemachus and his friends with mockery. Then for the last time
Telemachus rose up and spoke to the council.
'I have spoken in the council, and the men of Ithaka know, and the gods know, the rights
and wrongs of my case. All I ask of you now is that you give me a swift ship with twenty
youths to be my crew so that I may go to Pylos and to Sparta to seek tidings of my father.
If I find he is alive and that he is returning, then I can endure to wait another year in the
house and submit to what you do there.'
Even at this speech they mocked. Said one of them, Leocritus by name, 'Though
Odysseus be alive and should one day come into his own hall, that would not affright us.
He is one, and we