Visit of Pallas to Telemachus
A council of the gods—Deliberations concerning Ulysses—Mercury despatched to Calypso, to bid her send Ulysses to Ithaca—Visit of Pallas, in the shape of Mentor, to Telemachus, advising him to repair to Pylos and Sparta in quest of his father, Ulysses—Revels of the suitors of Penelope—Phemius, the minstrel, and his song of the return of the Grecians—The suitors rebuked by Telemachus.
Tell me, O Muse, of that sagacious man Who, having overthrown the sacred town Of Ilium, wandered far and visited The capitals of many nations, learned The customs of their dwellers, and endured Great suffering on the deep: his life was oft In peril, as he labored to bring back His comrades to their homes. He saved them not, Though earnestly he strove; they perished all, Through their own folly; for they banqueted, Madmen! upon the oxen of the Sun— The all-o’erlooking Sun, who cut them off From their return. O goddess, virgin-child Of Jove, relate some part of this to me.
Now all the rest, as many as escaped The cruel doom of death, were at their homes Safe from the perils of the war and sea, While him alone, who pined to see his home And wife again, Calypso, queenly nymph, Great among goddesses, detained within Her spacious grot, in hope that he might yet Become her husband. Even when the years Brought round the time in which the gods decreed That he should reach again his dwelling-place In Ithaca, though he was with his friends, His toils were not yet ended. Of the gods All pitied him save Neptune, who pursued With wrath implacable the godlike chief, Ulysses, even to his native land.
Among the Ethiopians was the god Far off—the Ethiopians most remote Of men. Two tribes there are; one dwells beneath The rising, one