With these words she came down
from her upper room, not alone but attended by two of her maidens,
and when she reached the suitors she stood by one of the
bearing-posts supporting the roof of the room, holding a veil before
her face, and with a staid maid servant on either side of her. As
they beheld her the suitors were so overpowered and became so
desperately enamored of her, that each one prayed he might win her
for his own bed fellow.
"Telemakhos," said she,
addressing her son, "I fear you are no longer so discreet and well
conducted as you used to be. When you were younger you had a subtler
thoughtfulness [kerdos]; now, however, that you are
grown up, though a stranger to look at you would take you for the son
of a well-to-do [olbios] father as far as size and
good looks go, your conduct is by no means what it should be. What is
all this disturbance that has been going on, and how came you to
allow a stranger to be so disgracefully ill-treated? What would have
happened if he had suffered serious injury while a suppliant in our
house? Surely this would have been very discreditable to
you."
"I am not surprised, my dear
mother, at your displeasure," replied Telemakhos, "I understand all
about it and know when things are not as they should be, which I
could not do when I was younger; I cannot, however, behave with
perfect propriety at all times. First one and then another of these
wicked people here keeps driving me out of my mind, and I have no one
to stand by me. After all, however, this fight between Iros and the
stranger did not turn out as the suitors meant it to do, for the
stranger got the best of it. I wish Father Zeus, Athena, and Apollo
would break the neck of every one of these wooers of yours, some
inside the house and some out; and I wish they might all be as limp
as Iros is over yonder in the gate of the outer court. See how he
nods his head like a drunken man; he has had such a thrashing that he
cannot stand on his feet nor get back to his home
[nostos], wherever that may be, for has no strength
left in him."
Thus did they converse.
Eurymakhos then came up and said, "Queen Penelope, daughter of
Ikarios, if all the Achaeans in Iasian Argos could see you at this
moment, you would have still more suitors in your house by tomorrow
morning, for you are the most admirable woman in the whole world both
as regards personal beauty and strength of understanding."
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