The Odyssey | Page 6

was sitting
moodily among the suitors thinking about his brave father, and how he
would send them flying out of the house, if he were to come to his own
again and be honoured as in days gone by. Thus brooding as he sat
among them, he caught sight of Minerva and went straight to the gate,
for he was vexed that a stranger should be kept waiting for admittance.
He took her right hand in his own, and bade her give him her spear.
"Welcome," said he, "to our house, and when you have partaken of
food you shall tell us what you have come for."
He led the way as he spoke, and Minerva followed him. When they
were within he took her spear and set it in the spear-stand against a
strong bearing-post along with the many other spears of his unhappy
father, and he conducted her to a richly decorated seat under which he
threw a cloth of damask. There was a footstool also for her feet,{2} and
he set another seat near her for himself, away from the suitors, that she
might not be annoyed while eating by their noise and insolence, and
that he might ask her more freely about his father.
A maid servant then brought them water in a beautiful golden ewer and
poured it into a silver basin for them to wash their hands, and she drew
a clean table beside them. An upper servant brought them bread, and
offered them many good things of what there was in the house, the
carver fetched them plates of all manner of meats and set cups of gold

by their side, and a manservant brought them wine and poured it out for
them.
Then the suitors came in and took their places on the benches and seats.
{3} Forthwith men servants poured water over their hands, maids went
round with the bread-baskets, pages filled the mixing-bowls with wine
and water, and they laid their hands upon the good things that were
before them. As soon as they had had enough to eat and drink they
wanted music and dancing, which are the crowning embellishments of
a banquet, so a servant brought a lyre to Phemius, whom they
compelled perforce to sing to them. As soon as he touched his lyre and
began to sing Telemachus spoke low to Minerva, with his head close to
hers that no man might hear.
"I hope, sir," said he, "that you will not be offended with what I am
going to say. Singing comes cheap to those who do not pay for it, and
all this is done at the cost of one whose bones lie rotting in some
wilderness or grinding to powder in the surf. If these men were to see
my father come back to Ithaca they would pray for longer legs rather
than a longer purse, for money would not serve them; but he, alas, has
fallen on an ill fate, and even when people do sometimes say that he is
coming, we no longer heed them; we shall never see him again. And
now, sir, tell me and tell me true, who you are and where you come
from. Tell me of your town and parents, what manner of ship you came
in, how your crew brought you to Ithaca, and of what nation they
declared themselves to be--for you cannot have come by land. Tell me
also truly, for I want to know, are you a stranger to this house, or have
you been here in my father's time? In the old days we had many visitors
for my father went about much himself."
And Minerva answered, "I will tell you truly and particularly all about
it. I am Mentes, son of Anchialus, and I am King of the Taphians. I
have come here with my ship and crew, on a voyage to men of a
foreign tongue being bound for Temesa {4} with a cargo of iron, and I
shall bring back copper. As for my ship, it lies over yonder off the open
country away from the town, in the harbour Rheithron {5} under the
wooded mountain Neritum. {6} Our fathers were friends before us, as

old Laertes will tell you, if you will go and ask him. They say, however,
that he never comes to town now, and lives by himself in the country,
faring hardly, with an old woman to look after him and get his dinner
for him, when he comes in tired from pottering about his vineyard.
They told me your father was at home again, and that was why I came,
but it seems the gods are still keeping him back, for he is not dead yet
not on the mainland. It is more likely he