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"So be it, old friend," answered Telemakhos, "but I am come now because I want to see you, and to learn whether my mother is still at her old home or whether some one else has married her, so that the bed of Odysseus is without bedding and covered with cobwebs."

"She is still at the house," replied Eumaios, "grieving and breaking her heart, and doing nothing but weep, both night and day continually."

As spoke he took Telemakhos’ spear, whereon he crossed the stone threshold and came inside. Odysseus rose from his seat to give him place as he entered, but Telemakhos checked him; "Sit down, stranger." said he, "I can easily find another seat, and there is one here who will lay it for me."

Odysseus went back to his own place, and Eumaios strewed some green brushwood on the floor and threw a sheepskin on top of it for Telemakhos to sit upon. Then the swineherd brought them platters of cold meat, the remains from what they had eaten the day before, and he filled the bread baskets with bread as fast as he could. He mixed wine also in bowls of ivy-wood, and took his seat facing Odysseus. Then they laid their hands on the good things that were before them, and as soon as they had had enough to eat and drink Telemakhos said to Eumaios, "Old friend, where does this stranger come from? How did his crew bring him to Ithaca, and who were they?-for assuredly he did not come here by land"’

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load focus Notes (W. Walter Merry, James Riddell, D. B. Monro, 1886)
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hide References (8 total)
  • Commentary references to this page (2):
    • W. Walter Merry, James Riddell, D. B. Monro, Commentary on the Odyssey (1886), 4.194
    • Walter Leaf, Commentary on the Iliad (1900), 24.124
  • Cross-references to this page (2):
    • A Dictionary of Greek and Roman Antiquities (1890), CENA
    • Athenaeus, Deipnosophistae, Ath. 1.19
  • Cross-references in general dictionaries to this page (2):
  • Cross-references in text-specific dictionaries to this page (2):
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