I.8 "Telemachus answered, 'Antinous...'"

Telemachus answered, "Antinous, do not chide with me,
but, god willing, I will be chief too if I can.
Is this the worst fate you can think of for me?
It is no bad thing to be a chief, for it brings both riches and honour.







Still, now that Ulysses is dead there are many great men in Ithaca both old and young,
and some other may take the lead among them;
nevertheless I will be chief in my own house,
and will rule those whom Ulysses has won for me."








Then Eurymachus, son of Polybus, answered,
"It rests with heaven to decide who shall be chief among us,
but you shall be master in your own house and over your own possessions;
no one while there is a man in Ithaca shall do you violence nor rob you.







And now, my good fellow, I want to know about this stranger.
What country does he come from?
Of what family is he, and where is his estate?
Has he brought you news about the return of your father,
or was he on business of his own?
He seemed a well-to-do man, but he hurried off so suddenly
that he was gone in a moment before we could get to know him."



u14: "Is there Gaelic on you?"

u7: "He's stinking with money and thinks you're not a gentleman. His old fellow made his tin by selling jalap to Zulus or some bloody swindle or other."



"My father is dead and gone," answered Telemachus,
"and even if some rumour reaches me I put no more faith in it now.
My mother does indeed sometimes send for a soothsayer and question him,
but I give his prophecyings no heed.
As for the stranger, he was Mentes, son of Anchialus, chief of the Taphians,
an old friend of my father's." But in his heart he knew that it had been the goddess.








The suitors then returned to their singing and dancing until the evening;
but when night fell upon their pleasuring they went home to bed each in his own abode.
Telemachus's room was high up in a tower that looked on to the outer court;
hither, then, he hied, brooding and full of thought.



u5: "Stephen stood up and went over to the parapet. Leaning on it he looked down on the water and on the mailboat clearing the harbour mouth of Kingstown."



A good old woman, Euryclea, daughter of Ops, the son of Pisenor,
went before him with a couple of blazing torches.
Laertes had bought her with his own money when she was quite young;
he gave the worth of twenty oxen for her,
and shewed as much respect to her in his household as he did to his own wedded wife,
but he did not take her to his bed for he feared his wife's resentment.
She it was who now lighted Telemachus to his room,
and she loved him better than any of the other women in the house did,
for she had nursed him when he was a baby.
He opened the door of his bed room and sat down upon the bed;
as he took off his shirt he gave it to the good old woman,
who folded it tidily up, and hung it for him over a peg by his bed side,
after which she went out, pulled the door to by a silver catch,
and drew the bolt home by means of the strap.


u6: "The aunt always keeps plainlooking servants for Malachi. Lead him not into temptation."

u22: "He struggled out of his shirt and flung it behind him to where his clothes lay."

u17: "Stephen, taking his ashplant from its leaningplace, followed them out and, as they went down the ladder, pulled to the slow iron door and locked it. He put the huge key in his inner pocket."



But Telemachus as he lay covered with a woollen fleece
kept thinking all night through of his intended voyage
of the counsel that Minerva had given him.



u9: "Woodshadows floated silently by through the morning peace from the stairhead seaward where he gazed."