Again Telemachus, the prudent, spake:— “Since thou dost ask me, stranger, know that once Rich and illustrious might this house be called While yet the chief was here. But now the gods Have grown unkind and willed it otherwise, They make his fate a mystery beyond The fate of other men. I should not grieve So deeply for his loss if he had fallen With his companions on the field of Troy, Or midst his kindred when the war was o’er. Then all the Greeks had built his monument, And he had left his son a heritage Of glory. Now has he become the prey Of Harpies, perishing ingloriously, Unseen, his fate unheard of, and has left Mourning and grief, my portion. Not for him Alone I grieve; the gods have cast on me Yet other hardships. All the chiefs who rule The isles, Dulichium, Samos, and the groves That shade Zacynthus, and who bear the sway In rugged Ithaca, have come to woo My mother, and from day to day consume My substance. She rejects not utterly Their hateful suit, and yet she cannot bear To end it by a marriage. Thus they waste My heritage, and soon will seek my life.”
Again in grief and anger Pallas spake:— “Yea, greatly dost thou need the absent chief Ulysses here, that he might lay his hands Upon these shameless suitors. Were he now To come and stand before the palace gate With helm and buckler and two spears, as first I saw him in our house, when drinking wine And feasting, just returned from Ephyrè Where Ilus dwelt, the son of Mermerus— For thither went Ulysses in a barque, To seek a deadly drug with which to taint His brazen arrows; Ilus gave it not; He feared the immortal gods; my father gave The poison, for exceedingly he loved His guest—could now Ulysses, in such guise, Once meet the suitors, short would be their lives And bitter would the marriage banquet be. Yet whether he return or not to take Vengeance, in his own palace, on this crew Of wassailers, rests only with the gods. Now let me counsel thee to think betimes How thou shalt thrust them from thy