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