The blue-eyed goddess Minerva addressed him in turn: "Thou hast spoken these things well, O dear old man; but it is fit for thee to persuade Telemachus, since thus it is much better. But he will now follow in company with you, that he may sleep in your palace; but I am going to my black ship, that I may cheer on my companions, and order every thing; for I alone boast myself to be older amongst them, but the others younger men follow on account of friendship, all of an equal age with high-minded Telemachus. There I may now rest in the hollow, black ship; but at dawn I am going to the magnanimous Cauconians, where a debt is owed me, not by any means recent, or little; but do you, since he has come to thy house, send him, with a chariot and your son: and give him horses, which are the fleetest to run, and most excellent in strength."
Having thus spoken, blue-eyed Minerva departed likened unto an eagle; and astonishment seized all who beheld; and the old man wondered, when he saw her with his eyes; and he laid hold of the hand of Telemachus, and spoke, and said:
"O friend, I do not expect that thou wilt be a coward and unwarlike, since the gods thus accompany thee, who art young, as thy conductors. For this was no one else of those who possess the Olympian houses, than the daughter of Jove, most glorious Minerva,[1] who honoured also your excellent sire amongst the Grecians. But, O queen, be propitious and grant me good renown, for myself, and my children, and my venerable wife; but to thee I will sacrifice a cow of one year old, of a wide forehead, untamed, which man has not yet led under the yoke. Her I will sacrifice to thee, having poured gold round her horns."
Thus he spoke praying: but Pallas Minerva heard him. But the Gerenian knight Nestor led them, his sons, and his sons-in-law to his beautiful palace. And when they came to the all-illustrious palace of the king, they sat in order on the couches and the thrones. And the old man mixed for them as they came a bowl of sweet wine, which the housekeeper opened in the eleventh year, and loosed the fastenings.[2] Of
