employments; but for him, let Mentor and Halitherses make ready his journey, they who are his companions, friends of his father from the beginning. But I ween, sitting for a long time, he will hear messages in Ithaca, and he will never perform this journey."
Thus he spoke, and he dissolved the assembly quickly.[1] They then were dispersed each to their own homes; but the suitors went to the house of godlike Ulysses. But Telemachus going at a distance on the shore of the sea, having washed his hands in the hoary wave, prayed to Minerva:
"Hear me, thou deity who didst yesterday come to my house, and didst command me to go in a ship over the shadowy sea to inquire concerning the return of my long-absent father; but the Grecians waste all these things, and especially the suitors, who are wickedly haughty."
Thus he spoke praying; but Minerva came near to him, likened unto Mentor both in person and voice, and addressing him spoke winged words.
"Telemachus, thou wilt not be hereafter a coward or foolish; if indeed the excellent disposition of thy father has been instilled into thee, such as he was to perform a deed and a word, thy journey soon will not be vain or unfinished; but if thou art not the son of him and Penelope, I do not expect that thou wilt perform what thou art eagerly bent upon. For few sons are like their father; more are worse; but few are better than their father. But since thou wilt not hereafter be a coward or foolish, nor has the understanding of Ulysses altogether left thee, there is some hope for thee that thou wilt perform these works. Wherefore disregard now the counsel and the mind of the foolish suitors, since they are not prudent or just: nor do they anticipate the death and gloomy fate, which is now nigh to them, for all to perish in one day. But the journey for which thou art anxious will not be long put off. For I, thy father's friend, am such to thee, who[2] will make ready for thee a swift ship, and will myself follow. But do thou go to the house, and associate with the suitors, and get ready provisions, and fit
