has brought me sorrow and that leaves me comfortless all my days! O
Phemius, do you not know other tales of men and gods that you might sing
in this hall for the delight of my noble wooers?'

The minstrel would have ceased when Penelope spoke thus to him, but
Telemachus went to the stairway where his lady-mother stood, and
addressed her.

'My lady-mother,' said he, 'why should you not let the minstrel delight
the company with such songs as the spirit moves him to give us? It is no
blame to him if he sings of that which is sorrowful to us. As for you,
my mother, you must learn to endure that story, for long will it be sung
and far and wide. And you are not the only one who is bereaved--many
another man besides Odysseus lost the happy day of his homecoming in
the war of Troy.'

[Illustration]

Penelope, his lady-mother, looked in surprise at the youth who spoke to
her so wisely. Was this indeed Telemachus who before had hardly lifted
his head? And as she looked at him again she saw that he carried his
head--that head of his that was so like Odysseus'--high and proudly. She
saw that her son was now indeed a man. Penelope spoke no word to him,
for a new thought had come into her mind. She turned round on the stairs
and went back with her hand-maids to the chamber where her loom and her
distaff were. And as she went up the stairway and away from them her
wooers muttered one to the other that she would soon have to choose one
of them for her husband.

Telemachus turned to those who were standing at the tables and addressed