Telemachus went down to the high storeroom where gold and bronze lay piled, clothes in chests, fragrant oil, and jars of old sweet wine kept against Odysseus’s return. Close-fitting doors shut it; Euryclea guarded all night and day. He called her and said:
“Nurse, draw me twelve jars of the best wine after what you keep for my father if he escapes death and comes home — fit them with lids. Fill well-sewn skins with about twenty measures of barley meal. Get it ready at once and say nothing. I will take it this evening when my mother has gone upstairs. I am going to Sparta and Pylos to hear news of my dear father.”
Euryclea cried out: “Child, what put that in your head? You are the one hope of the house. Your father is dead in some strange land, and the moment your back is turned these wicked ones will scheme to put you out of the way and share your goods. Stay among your people. Do not wander and worry your life out on the barren sea.”
Telemachus said: “Take heart, nurse. This plan is not without a god. Swear you will tell my mother nothing until the eleventh or twelfth day, or she misses me herself — so she may not ruin her flesh with weeping.” The old woman swore the great oath, then drew the wine and poured the barley. Telemachus went back to the suitors.