This was what he said, and more
than half raised a loud shout, and at once left the assembly. But the
rest stayed where they were, for the speech of Halitherses displeased
them, and they sided with Eupeithes; they therefore hurried off for
their armor, and when they had armed themselves, they met together in
front of the city, and Eupeithes led them on in their folly. He
thought he was going to avenge the murder of his son, whereas in
truth he was never to return, but was himself to perish in his
attempt.
Then Athena said to Zeus,
"Father, son of Kronos, king of kings, answer me this question - What
does your noos bid you? Will you set them fighting still
further, or will you make peace between them?"
And Zeus answered, "My child, why
should you ask me? Was it not by your own arrangement
[noos] that Odysseus came home and took his revenge
upon the suitors? Do whatever you like, but I will tell you what I
think will be the most reasonable arrangement. Now that Odysseus is
revenged, let them swear to a solemn covenant, in virtue of which he
shall continue to rule, while we cause the others to forgive and
forget the massacre of their sons and brothers. Let them then all
become friends as heretofore, and let peace and plenty
reign."
This was what Athena was already
eager to bring about, so down she darted from off the topmost summits
of Olympus.
This work is licensed under a
Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 3.0 United States License.
An XML version of this text is available for download, with the additional restriction that you offer Perseus any modifications you make. Perseus provides credit for all accepted changes, storing new additions in a versioning system.