His palace, wanting its king, was
become the resort of insolent and imperious men, the chief nobility of
Ithaca and of the neighboring isles, who, in the confidence of Ulysses
being dead, came as suitors to Penelope. The queen (it was true) continued
single, but was little better than a state-prisoner in the power of these
men, who, under a pretence of waiting her decision, occupied the king's
house rather as owners than guests, lording and domineering at their
pleasure, profaning the palace and wasting the royal substance with their
feasts and mad riots. Moreover, the goddess told him how, fearing the
attempts of these lawless men upon the person of his young son Telemachus,
she herself had put it into the heart of the prince to go and seek his
father in far countries; how in the shape of Mentor she had borne him
company in his long search; which, though failing, as she meant it should
fail, in its first object, had yet had this effect, that through hardships
he had learned endurance, through experience he had gathered wisdom, and
wherever his footsteps had been he had left such memorials of his worth as
the fame of Ulysses's son was already blown throughout the world. That it
was now not many days since Telemachus had arrived in the island, to the
great joy of the queen his mother, who had thought him dead, by reason of
his long absence, and had begun to mourn for him with a grief equal to
that which she endured for Ulysses: the goddess herself having so ordered
the course of his adventures that the time of his return should correspond
with the return of Ulysses, that they might together concert measures how
to repress the power and insolence of those wicked suitors.
Pages:
63
64
65
66
67
68
69
70
71
72
73
74
75
76
77
78
79
80
81
82
83
84
85
86
87