him in winged words:—
“My friend, whom here beside this barque I find Making a pious offering, I entreat Both by that offering and the deity, And by thy life, and by the lives of these Who follow thee, declare to me the truth, And keep back naught of all that I inquire— Who art thou, from what race of men, and where Thy city lies, and who thy parents are.”
Then spake in turn discreet Telemachus: “Stranger, to every point I answer thee. I am by race a son of Ithaca, My father was Ulysses when alive, But he has died a miserable death; Long years has he been absent, and I came With my companions here, and this black ship, To gather tidings of my father’s fate.”
Then said the godlike Theoclymenus: “I too, like thee, am far away from home; For I have slain a man of my own tribe, And he had many brothers, many friends, In Argos famed for steeds. Great is the power Of those Achaians, and I flee from them And the black doom of death, to be henceforth A wanderer among men. O, shelter me On board thy galley! I, a fugitive, Implore thy mercy, lest they overtake And slay me; they are surely on my track.”