er, seeing how the wooers insulted him, and
told him first to complain to an assembly of all the people, and then to
take a ship, and go seeking news of Ulysses.

Then Athene departed, and next day Telemachus called an assembly, and
spoke to the people, but though they were sorry for him they could not
help him. One old man, however, a prophet, said that Ulysses would
certainly come home, but the wooers only threatened and insulted him. In
the evening Athene came again, in the appearance of Mentor, not the
same man as Mentes, but an Ithacan, and a friend of Ulysses. She
encouraged Telemachus to take a ship, with twenty oarsmen, and he told
the wooers that he was going to see Menelaus and Nestor, and ask tidings
of his father. They only mocked him, but he made all things ready for
his voyage without telling his mother. It was old Eurycleia, who had
been his nurse and his father's nurse, that brought him wine and food
for his journey; and at night, when the sea wind wakens in summer, he
and Mentor went on board, and all night they sailed, and at noon next
day they reached Pylos on the sea sands, the city of Nestor the Old.

Nestor received them gladly, and so did his sons, Pisistratus and
Thrasymedes, who fought at Troy, and next day, when Mentor had gone,
Pisistratus and Telemachus drove together, up hill and down dale, a two
days' journey, to Lacedaemon, lying beneath Mount Taygetus on the bank
of the clear river Eurotas.

Not one of the Greeks had seen Ulysses since the day when they all
sailed from Troy, yet Menelaus, in a strange way, was able to tell
Telemachus that his father still lived, and was with Calypso on a lonely
island, the centre of all the seas. We shall see how Menelaus knew this.
When Telemachus and Pisistratus came, he was giving a feast, and called
them to his table. It would not have been courteous to ask them who they
were till they had been bathed and clothed in fresh raiment, and had
eaten and drunk. After dinner, Menelaus saw how much Telemachus admired
his house, and the flashing of light from the walls, which were covered
with bronze panels, and from the cups of gold, and the amber and ivory
and silver. Such things Telemachus had never seen in Ithaca. Noticing
his surprise, Menelaus said that he had brought many rich things from
Troy, after eight years wandering to Cyprus, and Phoenicia, and Egypt,
and even to Libya, on the north coast of Africa. Yet he said that,
though he was rich and fort