ps, and afterwards the maids came into
the hall and filled up the cups with wine.

But the servants who waited on Telemachus and his guest were disturbed
by the crowd of men who now came into the hall. They seated themselves
at tables and shouted out their orders. Great dishes of meat were
brought to them and bowls of wine, and the men ate and drank and talked
loudly to each other and did not refrain even from staring at the
stranger who sat with Telemachus.

'Is there a wedding-feast in the house?' the stranger asked, 'or do the
men of your clan meet here to drink with each other?'

A flush of shame came to the face of Telemachus. 'There is no
wedding-feast here,' he said, 'nor do the men of our clan meet here to
drink with each other. Listen to me, my guest. Because you look so wise
and because you seem so friendly to my father's name I will tell you who
these men are and why they trouble this house.'

Thereupon, Telemachus told the stranger how his father had not returned
from the war of Troy although it was now ten years since the City was
taken by those with whom he went. 'Alas,' Telemachus said, 'he must have
died on his way back to us, and I must think that his bones lie under
some nameless strait or channel of the ocean. Would he had died in the
fight at Troy! Then the Kings and Princes would have made him a
burial-mound worthy of his name and his deeds. His memory would have
been reverenced amongst men, and I, his son, would have a name, and
would not be imposed upon by such men as you see here--men who are
feasting and giving orders in my father's house and wasting the
substance that he gathered.'

'How come they to be here?' asked the stranger. Telemachus told him
about this also. When seven years had gone by from the fall of Troy and
still Odysseus did not return there were those who thought he was dead
and would never be seen more in the land of Ithaka. Then many of the
young lords of the land wanted Penelope, Telemachus' mother, to marry
one of them. They came to the house to woo her for marriage. But she,
mourning for the absence of Odysseus and ever hoping that he would
return, would give no answer to them. For three years now they were
coming to the house of Odysseus to woo the wife whom he had left behind
him. 'They want to put my lady-mother between two dread difficulties,'
said Telemachus, 'either to promise to wed one of them or to see the
substance of our house wasted by them. Here they come a