Then Medon said, "I wish, my
lady, that this were all; but they are plotting something much more
dreadful now - may heaven frustrate their design. They are going to
try and murder Telemakhos as he is coming home from Pylos and
Lacedaemon, where he has been to get news of his father."
Then Penelope's heart sank
within her, and for a long time she was speechless; her eyes filled
with tears, and she could find no utterance. At last, however, she
said, "Why did my son leave me? What business had he to go sailing
off in ships that make long voyages over the ocean like sea-horses?
Does he want to die without leaving any one behind him to keep up his
name?"
"I do not know," answered Medon,
"whether some god set him on to it, or whether he went on his own
impulse to see if he could find out if his father was dead, or alive
and on his way home [nostos]."
Then he went downstairs again,
leaving Penelope in an agony of grief [akhos]. There
were plenty of seats in the house, but she had no heart for sitting
on any one of them; she could only fling herself on the floor of her
own room and cry; whereon all the maids in the house, both old and
young, gathered round her and began to cry too, till at last in a
transport of sorrow she exclaimed,
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