take vengeance on AEgisthus.'[Footnote: AE-gis'-thus.] So he
spake, and my heart was comforted within me, and I said: 'There is
yet another of whom I would fain hear. Is he yet alive, wandering
on the deep, or is he dead? Speak, though it grieve me to hear.'
Straightway the old man answered: 'It is the son of Laertes of
whom thou speakest. Him I saw in an island, even in the dwelling
of Calypso; and he was shedding great tears, because the nymph
keeps him there by force, so that he may not come to his own
country, for he hath neither ship nor comrades.' So spake Proteus,
and plunged into the sea. The next day we went back to the river
AEgyptus, the stream that is fed from heaven, and offered
sacrifice to the gods. And I made a great burial mound for
Agamemnon, my brother, that his name might not be forgotten among
men. And when these things had been duly performed, I set sail,
and came back to my own country, for the gods gave me a fair wind.
But do thou tarry now in my halls. And when thou art minded to go,
I will give thee a chariot and three horses with it, and a goodly
cup also, from which thou mayest pour offerings to the gods."

To him Telemachus made reply: "Keep me not long, son of Atreus,
for my company wait for me in Pylos, though indeed I would be
content to stay with thee for a whole year, nor would any longing
for my home come over me. And let any gift thou givest me be a
thing for me to treasure. But I will take no horses to Ithaca.
Rather let them stay here and grace thy home, for thou art lord of
a wide plain where there is wheat and rye and barley. But in
Ithaca there is no meadow land. It is a pasture land of goats, yet
verily it is more pleasant to my eyes than as if it were a fit
feeding-place for horses."