To men far off, who stranger tongues indite.
For copper am I bound to Temesè,
And in my bark I bring sword-steel along with me.
Under the wooded cape, within the bay.
We twain do boast, each in the other's halls,
Our fathers' friendship from an ancient day.
Hero Laertes ask, and he will say."
But of Ulysses' present fate the guest declares he knows nothing; only he has a presentiment that he is detained somewhere in an unwilling captivity, but that, "though he be bound with chains of iron," he will surely find his way home again. But in any case, as his father's friend, the supposed Mentes bids Telemachus take heart and courage, and act manfully for himself. Let him give this train of riotous suitors fair warning to quit the palace, and waste his substance no more; let his mother Penelope go back to her own father's house (if she desires to wed again), and make her choice and hold her wedding-banquet there; and for his own part, let him at once set sail and make inquiry for his father round the coasts of Greece. It may be that Nestor of Pylos, or Menelaus of Sparta—the last returned of the chiefs of the expedition—can give him some tidings. If he can only hear that Ulysses is yet alive, then he may well endure to wait his return with patience; if assured of his death, it will befit him to take due vengeance on these his enemies. The divine visitor even hints a reproach of Telemachus' present inactivity:—
