for me, and when my mother goes into the upper chamber, I shall have
them carried away. Lo, nurse, I go to Pylos and to Sparta to seek
tidings from Nestor and Menelaus of Odysseus, my father.'

When she heard him say this, the nurse Eurycleia lamented. 'Ah,
wherefore, dear child,' she cried, 'has such a thought risen in your
mind? How could you fare over wide seas and through strange lands, you
who were never from your home? Stay here where you are well beloved. As
for your father, he has long since perished amongst strangers why should
you put yourself in danger to find out that he is no more? Nay, do not
go, Telemachus, my fosterling, but stay in your own house and in your
own well-beloved country.'

Telemachus said: 'Dear nurse, it has been shown to me that I should go
by a goddess. Is not that enough for you and for me? Now make all ready
for me as I have asked you, and swear to me that you will say nothing of
it to my mother until twelve days from this, or until she shall miss me
herself.'

Having sworn as he asked her, the nurse Eurycleia drew the wine into
jars and put the barley-meal into the well-sewn skins. Telemachus left
the vault and went back again into the hall. He sat with the wooers and
listened to the minstrel Phemius sing about the going forth of Odysseus
to the wars of Troy.

And while these things were happening the goddess Athene went through
the town in the likeness of Telemachus. She went to this youth and that
youth and told them of the voyage and asked them to make ready and go
down to the beach where the boat would be. And then she went to a man
called Noëmon, and begged him for a swift ship, and Noëmon gave it her.