evening; but when night fell upon their pleasuring they went
home to bed each in his own abode. {12} Telemachus's room was
high up in a tower {13} that looked on to the outer court;
hither, then, he hied, brooding and full of thought. A good old
woman, Euryclea, daughter of Ops, the son of Pisenor, went
before him with a couple of blazing torches. Laertes had bought
her with his own money when she was quite young; he gave the
worth of twenty oxen for her, and shewed as much respect to her
in his household as he did to his own wedded wife, but he did
not take her to his bed for he feared his wife's resentment.
{14} She it was who now lighted Telemachus to his room, and she
loved him better than any of the other women in the house did,
for she had nursed him when he was a baby. He opened the door of
his bed room and sat down upon the bed; as he took off his shirt
{15} he gave it to the good old woman, who folded it tidily up,
and hung it for him over a peg by his bed side, after which she
went out, pulled the door to by a silver catch, and drew the
bolt home by means of the strap. {16} But Telemachus as he lay
covered with a woollen fleece kept thinking all night through of
his intended voyage and of the counsel that Minerva had given
him.


Book II

ASSEMBLY OF THE PEOPLE OF ITHACA--SPEECHES OF TELEMACHUS AND OF
THE SUITORS--TELEMACHUS MAKES HIS PREPARATIONS AND STARTS FOR
PYLOS WITH MINERVA DISGUISED AS MENTOR.

Now when the child of morning, rosy-fingered Dawn, appeared