1 I have come, sir," replied Telemachus, "to see if you can tell me anything about my father.
2 There is no chance of my father's ever coming back; the gods have long since counselled his destruction.
3 Here my father has a field of rich garden ground, about as far from the town as a man's voice will carry.
4 Sit down there and wait for a while till the rest of us can get into the town and reach my father's house.
5 Then, when you think we must have done this, come into the town and ask the way to the house of my father Alcinous.
6 Now, however, go some of you and call old Dolius, who was given me by my father on my marriage, and who is my gardener.
7 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.
8 Sir, my father Nestor, when we used to talk about you at home, told me you were a person of rare and excellent understanding.
9 Hear me," he cried, "you god who visited me yesterday, and bade me sail the seas in search of my father who has so long been missing.
10 He is an Egyptian, and people say he is my father; he is Neptune's head man and knows every inch of ground all over the bottom of the sea.
11 Give me, then, a ship and a crew of twenty men to take me hither and thither, and I will go to Sparta and to Pylos in quest of my father who has so long been missing.
12 Nurse, draw me off some of the best wine you have, after what you are keeping for my father's own drinking, in case, poor man, he should escape death, and find his way home again after all.
13 Therefore, I am suppliant at your knees if haply you may tell me about my father's melancholy end, whether you saw it with your own eyes, or heard it from some other traveller; for he was a man born to trouble.
14 If, therefore, you want my father to give you an escort and to help you home, do as I bid you; you will see a beautiful grove of poplars by the road side dedicated to Minerva; it has a well in it and a meadow all round it.
15 Sir," said Telemachus, "as regards your question, so long as my father was here it was well with us and with the house, but the gods in their displeasure have willed it otherwise, and have hidden him away more closely than mortal man was ever yet hidden.
16 If these men were to see my father come back to Ithaca they would pray for longer legs rather than a longer purse, for money would not serve them; but he, alas, has fallen on an ill fate, and even when people do sometimes say that he is coming, we no longer heed them; we shall never see him again.
17 They are afraid to go to her father Icarius, asking him to choose the one he likes best, and to provide marriage gifts for his daughter, but day by day they keep hanging about my father's house, sacrificing our oxen, sheep, and fat goats for their banquets, and never giving so much as a thought to the quantity of wine they drink.
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