Telemachus went alone to the shore, washed his hands in the grey sea, and prayed: “Hear me, you who came yesterday as a god and ordered me to sail and ask after my father. The Achaeans hinder me — the wicked suitors most of all.”
Athena came near in Mentor’s likeness and voice: “Telemachus, you will not be base or senseless hereafter if your father’s spirit is in you — such a man to finish deed and word. Then this journey will not be useless. Few sons match their fathers; most are worse. But since Odysseus’s mind has not wholly failed you, there is hope. Leave the suitors’ plans alone — they know nothing of the dark doom near them, that they will perish in a day. Your voyage will not wait long. I myself will find you a ship and go with you. Go home, join the suitors, get provisions ready — wine in jars, barley in skins. I will gather willing companions through the town and choose the best ship. We will launch without delay.”
Telemachus went home heavy-hearted and found the suitors skinning goats and singeing pigs. Antinous laughed, took his hand, and said: “Telemachus, fire-eater — bear no more ill blood. Eat and drink with us. The Achaeans will find you a ship and crew for Pylos and news of your father.”
Telemachus pulled his hand away: “Antinous, I cannot feast in peace with men like you. Was it not enough you wasted my goods while I was a boy? Now I am older and stronger, and whether here or by going to Pylos I will do you all the harm I can. I shall go — though thanks to you I have neither ship nor crew of my own, and must be passenger, not captain.”
The others went on with dinner and mocked him. One said he meant to bring help from Pylos or Sparta, or poison from Ephyra for their wine. Another said if he sailed he might perish like his father far from friends — then they could divide his goods and leave the house to his mother and whoever married her.