next Bestow, for this most sumptuous hecatomb, Large recompense; and, lastly, grant to us— Telemachus and me—a safe return To our own country with the end attained Which brought us hither in our gallant barque.”
Thus did she pray, while she fulfilled the prayer; And then she handed to Telemachus The fair round goblet, and in words like hers The dear son of Ulysses prayed. Meanwhile The Pylians, having roasted well the flesh And drawn it from the spits, distributing To each his portion, held high festival. And when the calls of hunger and of thirst Were silenced, Nestor, the Gerenian knight, Began discourse, and thus bespake his guests:—
“The fitting time is come to ask our guests Who they may be, since now their feast is o’er. Say then, O strangers, who ye are, and whence Ye come along the pathway of the deep. Have ye an errand here, or do ye roam The seas at large, like pirates, braving death, And visiting with ravage foreign states?”
And then discreet Telemachus replied Boldly—for Pallas strengthened in that hour His heart that he might confidently ask News of his absent father, and so win A worthy fame among the sons of men:—
“O Nestor, son of Neleus, pride of Greece! Thou bid’st us tell thee whence we came, and I Will faithfully declare it. We are come From Ithaca, beneath the Neritus, And private, and not general, is the cause Of which I am to speak. I came to ask Concerning my great father, the large-souled And nobly-born Ulysses, who ’tis said With thee, his friend in arms, laid waste the town Of Ilium. We have heard where all the rest Who warred against the Trojans were cut off, And died sad deaths; his fate alone the son Of Saturn hath not chosen to reveal— Whether he fell on land by hostile hands, Or while at sea was whelmed beneath the waves Of Amphitritè. Wherefore to thy knees I come, to ask that thou—if so