Telemachus Returns — Father and son converge on Ithaca

Book 15 of The Odyssey by Homer

Now Pallas Athene went to wide Lacedaemon, to put the noble son of great-hearted Odysseus in mind of his return and to hasten his coming. She found Telemachus and the goodly son of Nestor lying in the forecourt of the house of glorious Menelaus. The son of Nestor was overcome with soft sleep, but sweet sleep did not hold Telemachus. Through the immortal night he lay wakeful, pondering in his heart the things Athene had told him about his father. Grey-eyed Athene stood by him and spoke: "Telemachus, it is no longer seemly that thou shouldest wander far from home, having left behind thee thy substance and men so insolent in thy house. Beware lest they divide and devour all thy possessions, and thy journey prove fruitless. Nay, rouse with all speed Menelaus of the loud war-cry to send thee on thy way, that thou mayest still find thy noble mother in thy halls. For already her father and her brothers are bidding her wed Eurymachus, who surpasses all the wooers in his gifts of courtship and has increased his bridal offerings. Take heed lest she carry some treasure from the house against thy will, for thou knowest what the heart of a woman is — she is fain to increase the house of the man who weds her and recks not of her former children and her lord who is dead. Go home and give all thy goods into the keeping of the handmaid whom thou trustest most, until the gods provide thee a noble wife."

"And another thing I will tell thee," said the goddess, "and do thou lay it up in thy heart. The noblest of the wooers are lying in wait for thee in the strait between Ithaca and rugged Samos, eager to slay thee before thou reach thy native country. But that I think shall not be — sooner shall the earth cover certain of those wooers who devour thy substance. Nay, keep thy well-wrought ship far from those islands and sail by night as well as day, and that one of the immortals who guards and keeps thee shall send a fair breeze in thy wake. And when thou hast touched the nearest shore of Ithaca, send thy ship and all thy company on to the city, but do thou thyself go first to the swineherd who keeps thy swine and has a kindly heart toward thee. There do thou sleep, and bid him go to the city to bear tidings to wise Penelope that thou hast returned from Pylos and art safe." With that Athene departed to high Olympus, and Telemachus stirred the son of Nestor from sweet sleep with a touch of his heel and said: "Wake, Peisistratus, son of Nestor, and yoke the whole-hooved horses to the car, that we may speed upon our way."

When they came to the steep citadel of Lacedaemon, they drove to the palace of glorious Menelaus. Telemachus spoke to the son of Nestor: "Son of Nestor, my heart's friend, wilt thou promise me a thing and make it good? We claim to be friends by right of our fathers' friendship, and we are of an age besides, and this journey shall make us of one mind the more. Do not drive me past my ship, Nestor's son, but set me down there, lest the old man keep me in his house against my will in his eagerness to show me kindness, for I must go home with all speed." Menelaus, when he learned of their departure, would not hold them against their will but gave them lordly parting-gifts. He brought out a mixing-bowl of silver, wrought about the rim with gold, the work of Hephaestus, which the hero Phaedimus, king of the Sidonians, had given him. And Helen came from her fragrant chamber, like Artemis of the golden distaff, and brought a robe which she herself had made, the fairest of all her embroidered robes. It glittered like a star, and lay undermost of all. "Take this gift, dear child," she said, "a keepsake from the hands of Helen, for thy bride to wear on the longed-for day of marriage. Until then let it lie in thy mother's keeping. And may joy go with thee to thy well-built house and thine own country."