glorious palace. When they came within The monarch’s sumptuous halls, each took his place In order on the couches and the thrones. The old man mingled for them as they came A bowl of delicate wine, eleven years old, Drawn by the damsel cupbearer, who took Its cover from the jar. The aged chief Mingled it in the bowl, and, pouring out A part to Pallas, offered earnest prayer To her, who sprang from aegis-bearing Jove.
When due libations had been made, and all Drank till they wished no more, most went away, Each to his home to sleep; but Nestor made Telemachus, the son of the great chief Ulysses, rest upon a sumptuous couch Within the echoing hall, and near to him The chief of squadrons, skilled to wield the spear, Peisistratus, who only of his sons Abode in Nestor’s halls unwedded yet; While in an inner room of that tall pile The monarch slumbered on a bed of state, Decked for him by the labors of his queen.
Soon as the daughter of the dawn appeared, The rosy-fingered Morning, Nestor left His bed and went abroad, and took his seat On smooth white stones before his lofty doors, That glistened as with oil, on which before Sat Neleus, wise in council as the gods. But he had yielded to the will of fate, And passed into the Underworld. Now sat Gerenian Nestor in his father’s place, The guardian of the Greeks. Around his seat, Just from the chambers of their rest, his sons Echephron, Stratius, and Aretus came, Perseus, and Thrasymedes; after these Came brave Peisistratus, the sixth and last. They led Telemachus, the godlike youth, And placed him near them. The Gerenian knight Nestor began, and thus bespake his sons:—
“Do quickly what I ask, dear sons, and aid To render Pallas, first of all the gods, Propitious—Pallas, who has deigned to come, And at a solemn feast to manifest Herself to me.