41) Homer Odyssey 3.385

   And Nestor grasped the hand of Telemachus, and spoke, and addressed him: 
   - [375] Friend, in no wise do I think that you will prove a base man or a cowardly person, if really when you are so young the Gods follow you to be your guides. 
   For truly this is none other of those that have their residence on Olympus but the daughter of Zeus, Tritogeneia, the maid most glorious, she that honored also your noble father among the Argives. 
   [380] Now, O Queen, be gracious, and grant to me fair renown, to me and to my sons and to my revered wife; and to you in return will I sacrifice a smooth and glossy cow, broad of brow, unbroken, which no man have yet led beneath the yoke.
   Her will I sacrifice, and I will overlay her horns with gold. 

   [385] So he spoke in prayer, and Pallas Athena heard him. 

   Then the horseman, Nestor of Gerenia, led them, his sons and the husbands of his daughters, to his beautiful palace. 
   And when they reached the glorious palace of the king, they sat down in rows on the chairs and high seats; [390] and on their coming the old man mixed for them a bowl of sweet wine, which now in the eleventh year the housewife opened, when she had loosed the string that held the lid. 
   Of it the old man bade a bowl be mixed, and ardently he prayed, as he poured libations, to Athena, the daughter of Zeus who bears the aegis. 

   And they led godlike Telemachus and made him sit beside them; and the horseman, Nestor of Gerenia, was first to speak among them: 
   -Quickly, my dear children, fulfill my desire, that first of all the Gods I may propitiate Athena, [420] who came to me in manifest presence to the rich feast of the God. 
   Come now, let one go to the plain for a cow, that she may come speedily, and that the cowboy may drive her; and let one go to the black ship of great-hearted Telemachus and bring all his comrades, and let him leave two men only; [425] and let one again bid the goldsmith Laerces come to this place, that he may overlay the cow's horns with gold. 
   And do you others remain here together; and bid the female servants within to make ready a feast throughout our glorious living rooms, to go for seats, and logs to set on either side of the altar, and to bring clear water.

   [430] So he spoke, and they all set busily to work. 

   The cowboy came from the plain and from the quick, well proportioned ship came the comrades of great-hearted Telemachus; the smith came, bearing in his hands his tools of bronze, the implements of his craft, anvil and hammer and well-made tongs, [435] wherewith he worked the gold; and Athena came to accept the sacrifice. 
   Then the old man, Nestor, the driver of chariots, gave gold, and the smith prepared it, and overlaid with that the horns of the cow, that the Goddess might rejoice when she beheld the offering. 
   And Stratius and goodly Echephron led the cow by the horns, [440] and Aretus came from the chamber, bringing them water for the hands in a basin embossed with flowers, and in the other hand he held barley grains in a basket; and Thrasymedes, firm in fight, stood by, holding in his hands a sharp axe, to strike the cow; and Perseus held the bowl for the blood. 

   Then the old man, Nestor, driver of chariots, [445] began the opening rite of hand-washing and sprinkling with barley grains, and ardently he prayed to Athena, cutting off as first offering the hair from the head, and casting it into the fire. 

   [265] Then fair-haired Menelaus answered Helen and said: 
   -Yes truly, all this, wife, has you spoken right. Before now have I come to know the counsel and the mind of many warriors, and have traveled over the wide earth, but never yet have mine eyes beheld such an one [270] as was Ulysses of the firm heart. 
   What a thing was this, too, which that mighty man worked and endured in the carved horse, in which place all we chiefs of the Argives were sitting, bearing to the Trojans death and fate! 
   Then you came to that place, and it must be that you was bid [275] by some god, who wished to grant glory to the Trojans, and godlike Deiphobus followed you on your way. 
   Three times did you go about the hollow ambush, trying it with your touch, and you did name aloud the chieftains of the Danaans by their names, likening your voice to the voices of the wives of all the Argives. 
   [280] Now I and the son of Tydeus and goodly Ulysses sat there in the middle and heard how you did call, and we two were eager to rise up and come forth, or else to answer straightway from within, but Ulysses held us back and stayed us, despite our eagerness. 
   [285] Then all the other sons of the Achaeans held their peace, but Anticlus alone was willing to speak and answer you; but Ulysses firmly closed his mouth with strong hands, and saved all the Achaeans, and held him thus until Pallas Athena led you away.

   Then, disturbed to severe displeasure, fair-haired Menelaus spoke to him: 
   -Out upon them, for truly in the bed of a man of brave heart were they willing to lie, who are themselves cowards. 
   [335] Even as when in the thicket-lair of a mighty lion a hind has laid to sleep her new-born suckling fawns, and roams over the mountain slopes and grassy vales seeking pasture, and then the lion comes to his lair and upon the two lets loose a cruel doom, [340] so will Ulysses let loose a cruel doom upon these men. 
   I would, O father Zeus and Athena and Apollo, that in such strength as when once in fair-stablished Lesbos he rose up and wrestled a match with Philomeleides and threw him mightily, and all the Achaeans rejoiced, [345] even in such strength Ulysses might come among the pretenders; then should they all find quick destruction and bitterness in their pretension. 

   Aias truly was lost in the middle of his long-oared ships. 
   [500] Upon the great rocks of Gyrae Poseidon at first drove him, but saved him from the sea; and he would have escaped his doom, hated of Athena young he was, had he not uttered a boastful word in great blindness of heart. 
   He declared that it was in spite of the Gods that he had escaped the great gulf of the sea; [505] and Poseidon heard his boastful speech, and straightway took his trident in his mighty hands, and stroke the rock of Gyrae and broke it apart. 
   And one part remained in its place, but the separated part fell into the sea, even that on which Aias sat at the first when his heart was greatly blinded, [510] and it bore him down into the boundless surging deep. 
   So there he perished, when he had drunk the salt water. 

   Then the good nurse Eurycleia answered Penelope: 
   -Dear lady, you may truly slay me with the pitiless sword or let me remain in the house, yet will I not hide my word from you. 
   [745] I knew all this, and gave him whatever he bade me, bread and sweet wine. 
   But he took from me a mighty oath not to tell you until at least the twelfth day should come, or you should yourself miss him and hear that he was gone, that you might not ruin your fair flesh with weeping.
   [750] But now bathe yourself, and take clean clothing for your body, and then go up to your upper chamber with your handmaids and pray to Athena, the daughter of Zeus who bears the aegis; for she may then save him even from death. 
   And trouble not a troubled old man; for [755] the race of the son of Arceisius is not, it seems to me, utterly hated by the blessed Gods, but there shall still be one, I think, to hold the high-roofed living rooms and the rich fields far away.

   So she spoke, and lulled Penelope's laments, and made her eyes to cease from weeping. 
   She then bathed, and took clean clothing for her body, [760] and went up to her upper chamber with her handmaids, and placing barley grains in a basket prayed to Athena: 
   -Hear me, child of Zeus who bears the aegis, indefatigable one. 
   If ever Ulysses, of many stratagems, burned to you in his living rooms fat thigh-pieces of cows or ewe, [765] remember these things now, I pray you, and save my dear son, and guard off from him the pretenders in their evil insolence.

   So saying she raised the sacred cry, and the Goddess heard her prayer.