Page 347 - the-odyssey

‘Unhappy men, what is it that ails you? There is a shroud
of darkness drawn over you from head to foot, your cheeks
are wet with tears; the air is alive with wailing voices; the
walls and roof-beams drip blood; the gate of the cloisters
and the court beyond them are full of ghosts trooping down
into the night of hell; the sun is blotted out of heaven, and a
blighting gloom is over all the land.’
Thus did he speak, and they all of them laughed heartily.
Eurymachus then said, ‘This stranger who has lately come
here has lost his senses. Servants, turn him out into the
streets, since he finds it so dark here.’
But Theoclymenus said, ‘Eurymachus, you need not send
any one with me. I have eyes, ears, and a pair of feet of my
own, to say nothing of an understanding mind. I will take
these out of the house with me, for I see mischief overhang-
ing you, from which not one of you men who are insulting
people and plotting ill deeds in the house of Ulysses will be
able to escape.’
He left the house as he spoke, and went back to Pirae-
us who gave him welcome, but the suitors kept looking at
one another and provoking Telemachus by laughing at the
strangers. One insolent fellow said to him, ‘Telemachus,
you are not happy in your guests; first you have this impor-
tunate tramp, who comes begging bread and wine and has
no skill for work or for hard fighting, but is perfectly use-
less, and now here is another fellow who is setting himself
up as a prophet. Let me persuade you, for it will be much
better to put them on board ship and send them off to the
Sicels to sell for what they will bring.’

The Odyssey