wo should try
their strengths against a host. Nor five, or ten, or twice ten strong
are these suitors, but many more by much: from Dulichium came there
fifty and two, they and their servants, twice twelve, crossed the seas
hither from Samos, from Zacynthus twice ten, of our native Ithacans,
men of chief note, are twelve who aspire to the bed and crown of
Penelope, and all these under one strong roof, a fearful odds against
two! My father, there is need of caution, lest the cup which your
great mind so thirsts to taste of vengeance, prove bitter to yourself
in the drinking. And therefore it were well that we should bethink us
of some one who might assist us in this undertaking."

"Thinkest thou," said his father, "if we had Minerva and the king of
skies to be our friends, would their sufficiencies make strong our
part; or must we look out for some further aid yet?"

"They you speak of are above the clouds," said Telemachus, "and are
sound aids indeed; as powers that not only exceed human, but bear the
chiefest sway among the gods themselves."

Then Ulysses gave directions to his son, to go and mingle with the
suitors, and in no wise to impart his secret to any, not even to the
queen his mother, but to hold himself in readiness, and to have his
weapons and his good armour in preparation. And he charged him, that
when he himself should come to the palace, as he meant to follow
shortly after, and present himself in his beggar's likeness to the
suitors, that whatever he should see which might grieve his heart,
with what foul usage and contumelious language soever the suitors
should receive his father, coming in that shape, though they should
strike and drag him by the heels along the floors, that he should not
stir nor make offer to oppose them, further than by mild words to
expostulate with them, until Minerva from heaven should give the sign
which should be the prelude to their destruction. And Telemachus
promising to obey his instructions departed; and the shape of Ulysses
fell to what it had been before, and he became to all outward
appearance a beggar, in base and beggarly attire.

CHAPTER IX

_The queen's suitors.--The battle of the beggars.--The armour taken
down.--The meeting with Penelope._

From the house of Eumaeus the seeming beggar took his way, leaning on
his staff, till he reached the palace, entering in at the hall where
the suitors sat at meat. They in the pride of their feasting began to
b