would unpick the stitches again by torchlight. She fooled us in
this way for three years and we never found her out, but as time
wore on and she was now in her fourth year, one of her maids who
knew what she was doing told us, and we caught her in the act of
undoing her work, so she had to finish it whether she would or
no. The suitors, therefore, make you this answer, that both you
and the Achaeans may understand-'Send your mother away, and bid
her marry the man of her own and of her father's choice'; for I
do not know what will happen if she goes on plaguing us much
longer with the airs she gives herself on the score of the
accomplishments Minerva has taught her, and because she is so
clever. We never yet heard of such a woman; we know all about
Tyro, Alcmena, Mycene, and the famous women of old, but they
were nothing to your mother any one of them. It was not fair of
her to treat us in that way, and as long as she continues in the
mind with which heaven has now endowed her, so long shall we go
on eating up your estate; and I do not see why she should
change, for she gets all the honour and glory, and it is you who
pay for it, not she. Understand, then, that we will not go back
to our lands, neither here nor elsewhere, till she has made her
choice and married some one or other of us."

Telemachus answered, "Antinous, how can I drive the mother who
bore me from my father's house? My father is abroad and we do
not know whether he is alive or dead. It will be hard on me if I
have to pay Icarius the large sum which I must give him if I
insist on sending his daughter back to him. Not only will he
deal rigorously with me, but heaven will also punish me; for my
mother when she leaves the house will call on the Erinyes to
avenge her; besides, it would not be a creditable thing to do,