it him. It is not so much an affliction to me
that these wooers waste his goods as that you do not rise up to forbid
it. But let them persist in doing it on the hazard of their own heads.
For a doom will come on them, I say. And I say again to you of the
council: you are many and the wooers are few: Why then do you not put
them away from the house of Odysseus?'

But no one in the council took the side of Telemachus and Halitherses
and Mentor--so powerful were the wooers and so fearful of them were the
men of the council. The wooers looked at Telemachus and his friends with
mockery. Then for the last time Telemachus rose up and spoke to the
council.

'I have spoken in the council, and the men of Ithaka know, and the gods
know, the rights and wrongs of my case. All I ask of you now is that you
give me a swift ship with twenty youths to be my crew so that I may go
to Pylos and to Sparta to seek tidings of my father. If I find he is
alive and that he is returning, then I can endure to wait another year
in the house and submit to what you do there.'

Even at this speech they mocked. Said one of them, Leocritus by name,
'Though Odysseus be alive and should one day come into his own hall,
that would not affright us. He is one, and we are many, and if he should
strive with those who outnumber him, why then, let his doom be on his
own head. And now, men of the council, scatter yourselves and go each to
his own home, and let Mentor and Halitherses help Telemachus to get a
ship and a crew.'

Leocritus said that knowing that Mentor and Halitherses were old and had
few friends, and that they could do nothing to help Telemachus to get a
ship. The council broke up and those who were in it scattered. But the
wooers went together back to the house of Odysseus.

V

Telemachus went apart, and, going by himself, came to the shore of the
sea. He dipped his hands into the sea-water and prayed, saying, 'O
Goddess Athene, you who did come to my father's hall yesterday, I have
tried to do as you bade me. But still the wooers of my mother hinder me
from taking ship to seek tidings of my father.'

He spoke in prayer and then he saw one who had the likeness of the old
man Mentor coming towards him. But by the grey, clear,
wonderfully-shining eyes he knew that the figure was none other than the
goddess Athene.

[Illustration]

'Telemachus,' said she, 'if you have indeed one drop of your father's
blood in you or one portion of hi