I.7 "'Mother,' answered Telemachus..."

"Mother," answered Telemachus, "let the bard sing what he has a mind to;
bards do not make the ills they sing of;
it is Jove, not they, who makes them,
and who sends weal or woe upon mankind according to his own good pleasure.
This fellow means no harm by singing the ill-fated return of the Danaans,
for people always applaud the latest songs most warmly.
Make up your mind to it and bear it;


u19: "— We oughtn't to laugh, I suppose. He's rather blasphemous. I'm not a believer myself, that is to say. Still his gaiety takes the harm out of it somehow, doesn't it?"

u20: "— After all, I should think you are able to free yourself. You are your own master, it seems to me."


Ulysses is not the only man who never came back from Troy,
but many another went down as well as he.
Go, then, within the house and busy yourself with your daily duties,
your loom, your distaff, and the ordering of your servants;
for speech is man's matter, and mine above all others—
for it is I who am master here."



u18: "— And what is death, he asked, your mother's or yours or my own? You saw only your mother die. I see them pop off every day in the Mater and Richmond and cut up into tripes in the dissecting room. It's a beastly thing and nothing else. It simply doesn't matter."




She went wondering back into the house,
and laid her son's saying in her heart.
Then, going upstairs with her handmaids into her room,
she mourned her dear husband till Minerva shed sweet sleep over her eyes.
But the suitors were clamorous throughout the covered cloisters,
and prayed each one that he might be her bed fellow.








Then Telemachus spoke, "Shameless," he cried, "and insolent suitors,
let us feast at our pleasure now, and let there be no brawling,
for it is a rare thing to hear a man with such a divine voice as Phemius has;
but in the morning meet me in full assembly
that I may give you formal notice to depart,
and feast at one another's houses, turn and turn about, at your own cost.


u4: "If he stays on here I am off."




If on the other hand you choose to persist in spunging upon one man,
heaven help me, but Jove shall reckon with you in full,
and when you fall in my father's house there shall be no man to avenge you."



u16: "— To tell you the God's truth I think you're right. Damn all else they are good for. Why don't you play them as I do? To hell with them all. Let us get out of the kip."




The suitors bit their lips as they heard him,
and marvelled at the boldness of his speech.
Then, Antinous, son of Eupeithes, said,
"The gods seem to have given you lessons in bluster and tall talking;
may Jove never grant you to be chief in Ithaca as your father was before you."