bring matters to an end; so they are making havoc of my estate,
and before long will do so also with myself."

"Is that so?" exclaimed Minerva, "then you do indeed want
Ulysses home again. Give him his helmet, shield, and a couple of
lances, and if he is the man he was when I first knew him in our
house, drinking and making merry, he would soon lay his hands
about these rascally suitors, were he to stand once more upon
his own threshold. He was then coming from Ephyra, where he had
been to beg poison for his arrows from Ilus, son of Mermerus.
Ilus feared the ever-living gods and would not give him any, but
my father let him have some, for he was very fond of him. If
Ulysses is the man he then was these suitors will have a short
shrift and a sorry wedding.

"But there! It rests with heaven to determine whether he is to
return, and take his revenge in his own house or no; I would,
however, urge you to set about trying to get rid of these
suitors at once. Take my advice, call the Achaean heroes in
assembly to-morrow morning--lay your case before them, and call
heaven to bear you witness. Bid the suitors take themselves off,
each to his own place, and if your mother's mind is set on
marrying again, let her go back to her father, who will find her
a husband and provide her with all the marriage gifts that so
dear a daughter may expect. As for yourself, let me prevail upon
you to take the best ship you can get, with a crew of twenty
men, and go in quest of your father who has so long been
missing. Some one may tell you something, or (and people often
hear things in this way) some heaven-sent message may direct
you. First go to Pylos and ask Nestor; thence go on to Sparta