But Theoklymenos said,
"Eurymakhos, you need not send any one with me. I have eyes, ears,
and a pair of feet of my own, to say nothing of an understanding mind
[noos]. I will take these out of the house with me,
for I see mischief overhanging you, from which not one of you men who
are insulting people and plotting ill deeds in the house of Odysseus
will be able to escape."
He left the house as he spoke,
and went back to Peiraios who gave him welcome, but the suitors kept
looking at one another and provoking Telemakhos by laughing at the
strangers. One insolent fellow said to him, "Telemakhos, you are not
happy in your guests; first you have this importunate tramp, who
comes begging bread and wine and has no skill for work or for hard
fighting [biê], but is perfectly useless, and
now here is another fellow who is setting himself up as a seer. Let
me persuade you, for it will be much better, to put them on board
ship and send them off to the Sicels to sell for what they will
bring."
Telemakhos gave him no heed, but
sat silently watching his father, expecting every moment that he
would begin his attack upon the suitors.
Meanwhile the daughter of
Ikarios, wise Penelope, had had a rich seat placed for her facing the
court and cloisters, so that she could hear what every one was
saying. The dinner indeed had been prepared amid merriment; it had
been both good and abundant, for they had sacrificed many victims;
but the supper was yet to come, and nothing can be conceived more
gruesome than the meal which a goddess and a brave man were soon to
lay before them - for they had brought their doom upon themselves.
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