Telemachus said: “Eurymachus, and you other suitors — I entreat you no further. The gods and the Achaeans know my story. Give me a swift ship and twenty companions. I go to Sparta and sandy Pylos to ask after my father’s return. If I hear he is alive and coming, I will endure another year. If I hear he is dead, I will come home, heap his mound, pay the honors, and give my mother to a husband.”
He sat down. Mentor rose — companion of blameless Odysseus, left in charge of the household when Odysseus sailed. With good intent he said: “Men of Ithaca, let no scepter-bearing king be kind and just anymore, seeing none of you remember Odysseus, who was gentle as a father. I do not grudge the suitors their violence — they stake their own heads, eating his house and saying he will not return. But I resent the rest of you, sitting silent, though you are many and they are few.”
Leocritus son of Euenor answered: “Mentor, mad talk — urging them to stop us. Hard for more to fight fewer over a feast. Even if Odysseus himself came and tried to drive us out, his wife would take no joy — he would meet an ugly doom against greater numbers. People, go to your work. Let Mentor and Halitherses speed this boy if he goes — which I do not think he will. He will sit long yet getting messages in Ithaca.”
So he broke up the assembly. Men went to their houses; the suitors to Odysseus’s hall.