Page 229 - the-odyssey

‘But why,’ said Ulysses, ‘did you not tell him, for you
knew all about it? Did you want him too to go sailing about
amid all kinds of hardship while others are eating up his
estate?’
Minerva answered, ‘Never mind about him, I sent him
that he might be well spoken of for having gone. He is in
no sort of difficulty, but is staying quite comfortably with
Menelaus, and is surrounded with abundance of every
kind. The suitors have put out to sea and are lying in wait
for him, for they mean to kill him before he can get home. I
do not much think they will succeed, but rather that some
of those who are now eating up your estate will first find a
grave themselves.’
As she spoke Minerva touched him with her wand and
covered him with wrinkles, took away all his yellow hair,
and withered the flesh over his whole body; she bleared his
eyes, which were naturally very fine ones; she changed his
clothes and threw an old rag of a wrap about him, and a
tunic, tattered, filthy, and begrimed with smoke; she also
gave him an undressed deer skin as an outer garment, and
furnished him with a staff and a wallet all in holes, with a
twisted thong for him to sling it over his shoulder.
When the pair had thus laid their plans they parted, and
the goddess went straight to Lacedaemon to fetch Telema-
chus.

The Odyssey