Telemachus spoke among them: “Suitors of my mother — violent in your pride — feast for now without shouting; it is fine to hear a singer like the gods in voice. But in the morning meet me in full assembly. I will tell you outright to leave these halls. Eat at your own cost, house by house. If you choose to destroy one man’s livelihood without payment, keep at it. I will call on the gods. Perhaps Zeus will grant requital — and you will die in this house with no payment made.”
They bit their lips, amazed at his boldness. Antinous son of Eupeithes said: “Telemachus, the gods must be teaching you tall talk. May the son of Cronus never make you king in sea-girt Ithaca as your father was.”
Telemachus answered: “Antinous, even that I would take if Zeus gave it. It is no bad thing to be a king — the house grows rich and he is honored. There are many other Achaean lords in Ithaca; one of them might hold this since Odysseus has died. But I will be lord of our own house and of the servants Odysseus won for me.”
Eurymachus son of Polybus said: “Who will be king lies on the gods’ knees. Keep your own and be lord in your house — no man in Ithaca will seize your goods by force. But who was that stranger? What land? Did he bring news of your father, or come on his own business? He was gone before we knew him.”
Telemachus said: “My father’s homecoming is lost. I trust no message now, nor any seer my mother calls. The stranger was Mentes of Taphos, an old friend of my father’s.” But in his heart he knew the deathless goddess.
They turned to dance and song until evening, then went each to his own house. Telemachus went to his chamber in the courtyard, mind full of thoughts. Loyal Euryclea lit the way with torches — Laertes had bought her long ago for the price of twenty oxen and honored her like a wife, though he never lay with her. She loved Telemachus more than the other women; she had nursed him as a baby.
He opened the chamber doors, sat on the bed, and gave her his soft tunic. She folded it, hung it on a peg, pulled the door to by its silver handle, and drew the bolt with its strap. All night, wrapped in a fleece, he pondered the journey Athena had shown him.