them. 'Wooers of my mother,' he said, 'I have a word to say to you.'

'By the gods, youth,' said one of the wooers, 'you must tell us first
who he is who has made you so high and proud of speech.'

'Surely,' said another, 'he who has done that is the stranger who was
with him. Who is he? Why did he come here, and of what land has he
declared himself to be?'

'Why did he not stay so that we might look at him and speak to him?'
said another of the wooers.

'These are the words I would say to you. Let us feast now in peace,
without any brawling amongst us, and listen to the tale that the
minstrel sings to us,' said Telemachus. 'But to-morrow let us have a
council made up of the chief men of this land of Ithaka. I shall go to
the council and speak there. I shall ask that you leave this house of
mine and feast on goods that you yourselves have gathered. Let the chief
men judge whether I speak in fairness to you or not. If you do not heed
what I will say openly at the council, before all the chief men of our
land, then let it be on your own heads what will befall you.'

All the wooers marvelled that Telemachus spoke so boldly. And one said,
'Because his father, Odysseus, was king, this youth thinks he should be
king by inheritance. But may Zeus, the god, never grant that he be
king.'

Then said Telemachus, 'If the god Zeus should grant that I be King, I am
ready to take up the Kingship of the land of Ithaka with all its toils
and all its dangers.' And when Telemachus said that he looked like a