_Assembly of the people of Ithaca--Telemachus starts for
Pylos_.
Next morning, as soon as he was up and dressed,
Telemachus sent the criers round the town to call the
people in assembly. When they came together he told them
of his misfortune in the death of his father, and of the
still greater one that the suitors were making havoc of
his estate. "If anybody," he concluded, "is to eat me out 46
of house and home I had rather you did it yourselves; for
you are men of substance, so that if I sued you household
by household I should recover from yon; whereas there is
nothing to be got by suing a number of young men who have
no means of their own." 85
To this Antinous rejoined that it was Penelope's own
fault. She had been encouraging the suitors all the time
by sending flattering messages to every single one of
them. He explained how for nearly four years she had
tricked them about the web, which she said was to be a
pall for Laertes. "The answer, therefore," said he, "that
we make you is this: 'Send your mother away, and let her
marry the man of her own and of her father's choice;' for
we shall not go till she has married some one or other of
us."
Telemachus answered that he could not force his mother to 129
leave against her will. If he did so he should have to
refund to his grandfather Icarius the dowry that Ulysses
had received on marrying Penelope, and this would bear
hardly on him. Besides it would not be a creditable thing
to do.
On this Jove sent two eagles from the top of a 146
mountain,[6] who flew and flew in their own lordly flight
till they reached the assembly, over which they screamed
and fought, glaring death into the faces of those who
were below. The people wondered what it might all mean,
till the old Soothsayer Halitherses told them that it
foreshadowed the immediate return of Ulysses to take his
revenge upon the suitors.
Eurymachus made him an angry answer. "As long," he 177
concluded, "as Penelope delays her choice, we can marry
no one else, and shall continue to waste Telemachus's
estate."
Telemachus replied that there was nothing more to be 208
said, and asked the suitors to let him have a ship with a
crew of twenty men, that he might follow the advice given
him by Minerva.
Mentor now upbraided his countrymen for standing idly 224
by when they could easily coerce the suitors into good
behaviour, and after a few insolent words from Leocritus
the meeting dispersed. The suitors then returned to the
house of Ulysses.
But Telemachus went away all alone by the sea side to 260
pray. He washed his hands in the grey waves, and implored
Minerva to assist him; whereon the goddess came up to
him in the form of Mentor. She discoursed to him about
his conduct generally, and wound up by saying that she
would not only find him a ship, but would come with
him herself. He was therefore to go home and get the
necessary provisions ready.
He did as she directed him and went home, where, after 296
an angry scene with the suitors, in which he again
published his intention of going on his voyage, he went
down into the store room and told Euryclea to get the
provisions ready; at the same time he made her take a
solemn oath of secrecy for ten or twelve days, so as not
to alarm Penelope. Meanwhile Minerva, still disguised as
Mentor, borrowed a ship from a neighbour. Noëmon, and at
nightfall, after the suitors had left as usual, she and
Telemachus with his crew of twenty volunteers got the
provisions on board and set sail, with a fair wind that
whistled over the waters.