Page 36 - the-odyssey

Leiocritus, son of Evenor, answered him saying, ‘Mentor,
what folly is all this, that you should set the people to stay
us? It is a hard thing for one man to fight with many about
his victuals. Even though Ulysses himself were to set upon
us while we are feasting in his house, and do his best to
oust us, his wife, who wants him back so very badly, would
have small cause for rejoicing, and his blood would be upon
his own head if he fought against such great odds. There is
no sense in what you have been saying. Now, therefore, do
you people go about your business, and let his father’s old
friends, Mentor and Halitherses, speed this boy on his jour-
ney, if he goes at all—which I do not think he will, for he is
more likely to stay where he is till some one comes and tells
him something.’
On this he broke up the assembly, and every man went
back to his own abode, while the suitors returned to the
house of Ulysses.
Then Telemachus went all alone by the sea side, washed
his hands in the grey waves, and prayed to Minerva.
‘Hear me,’ he cried, ‘you god who visited me yesterday,
and bade me sail the seas in search of my father who has so
long been missing. I would obey you, but the Achaeans, and
more particularly the wicked suitors, are hindering me that
I cannot do so.’
As he thus prayed, Minerva came close up to him in the
likeness and with the voice of Mentor. ‘Telemachus,’ said
she, ‘if you are made of the same stuff as your father you will
be neither fool nor coward henceforward, for Ulysses never
broke his word nor left his work half done. If, then, you take