palace. The next morning they sacrifice a bullock to Minerva; and Telemachus

proceeds on his journey to Sparta, attended by Pisistratus.

    The scene lies on the sea-shore of Pylos.


The sacred sun, above the waters raised,

Through heaven’s eternal brazen portals blazed;

And wide o’er earth diffused his cheering ray,

To gods and men to give the golden day.

Now on the coast of Pyle the vessel falls,

Before old Neleus’ venerable walls.

There suppliant to the monarch of the flood,

At nine green theatres the Pylians stood,

Each held five hundred (a deputed train),

At each, nine oxen on the sand lay slain.

They taste the entrails, and the altars load

With smoking thighs, an offering to the god.

Full for the port the Ithacensians stand,

And furl their sails, and issue on the land.

Telemachus already press’d the shore;

Not first, the power of wisdom march’d before,

And ere the sacrificing throng he join’d,

Admonish’d thus his well-attending mind:


“Proceed, my son! this youthful shame expel;

An honest business never blush to tell.

To learn what fates thy wretched sire detain,

We pass’d the wide immeasurable main.

Meet then the senior far renown’d for sense

With reverend awe, but decent confidence:

Urge him with truth to frame his fair replies;

And sure he will; for wisdom never lies.”


“Oh tell me, Mentor! tell me, faithful guide

(The youth with prudent modesty replied),

How shall I meet, or how accost the sage,

Unskill’d in speech, nor yet mature of age?

Awful th’approach, and hard the task appears,

To question wisely men of riper years.”


To whom the martial goddess thus rejoin’d:

“Search, for some thoughts, thy own suggesting mind;

And others, dictated by heavenly power,

Shall rise spontaneous in the needful hour.

For nought unprosperous shall thy ways attend,

Born with good omens, and with heaven thy friend.”


She spoke, and led the way with swiftest speed;