Taking the form of Mentes, Athena met Telemachus and informed him that
his father was not yet dead. Seeing the suitors who were wooing his
mother Penelope and eating up the house in riot, she advised him to
dismiss them and visit Nestor in Pylos. A lay sung by Phemius brought
Penelope from her chamber, who was astonished at the immediate change
which her son's speech showed had come upon him, transforming him to
manhood.

Next day Telemachus called an Assembly of the Ithacans; his appeal to
the suitors to leave him in peace provoked an insulting speech from
their ringleader Antinous who held Penelope to blame for their
presence; she had constantly eluded them, on one occasion promising to
marry when she had woven a shroud for Laertes her father-in-law; the
work she did by day she undid at night, till she was betrayed by a
serving-woman. Telemachus then asked the suitors for a ship to get
news of his father. When the assembly broke up, Athena appeared in
answer to Telemachus' prayer in the form of Mentor and pledged herself
to go with him on his travels. She prepared a ship and got together a
crew, while Telemachus bade his old nurse Eurycleia conceal from his
mother his departure.

In Pylos Nestor told him all he knew of Odysseus, describing the
sorrows which came upon the Greek leaders on their return and
especially the evil end of Agamemnon. He added that Menelaus had just
returned to Sparta and was far more likely to know the truth than any
other, for he had wandered widely over the seas on his home-coming.
Bidding Nestor look after Telemachus, Athena vanished from his sight,
but not before she was recognised by the old hero. On the morrow
Telemachus set out for Sparta, accompanied by Pisistratus, one of