Athena, stirred, said: “You do need Odysseus home to lay hands on these shameless suitors. If only he stood now at the doors with helmet, shield, and two spears — such as I first saw him in our house, coming from Ephyra seeking poison for his arrows. If he were such a man among them, they would find a bitter wedding and a swift death. But these things lie on the gods’ knees.”
“Listen and take my words to heart. Tomorrow call the Achaeans to assembly, declare your will, and let the gods witness. Order the suitors to their own places. If your mother’s heart urges marriage, let her go to her father’s hall; they will make the wedding and the gifts due a cherished daughter. For yourself: fit the best ship with twenty rowers and go ask after your father gone so long. First to Pylos and bright Nestor, then to Sparta and fair-haired Menelaus — he came home last of the bronze-clad Achaeans.”
“If you hear your father is alive and coming, endure another year though they waste your goods. If you hear he is dead, come home, heap his mound, pay the honors due, and give your mother to a husband. Then take thought how you may kill the suitors in your halls, by stealth or openly. You are no longer a child. Have you not heard what fame Orestes won when he killed crafty Aegisthus, his father’s murderer? Be brave, so men to come may speak well of you. I go to my ship. Take my words to heart.”
Telemachus said: “You have spoken as a father to his son. I will not forget. Stay a while to bathe and take a gift, a keepsake such as guest-friends give.” Athena answered: “Do not hold me when I am eager for the road. Give the gift when I come again.”