Kitap 4
"Son of Atreus," replied Telemakhos, "do not press me to stay longer; I should be contented to remain with you for another twelve months; I find your conversation so delightful that I should never once wish myself at home with my parents; but my crew whom I have left at Pylos are already impatient, and you are detaining me from them. As for any present you may be disposed to make me, I had rather that it should he a piece of plate. I will take no horses back with me to Ithaca, but will leave them to adorn your own stables, for you have much flat ground in your kingdom where lotus thrives, as also meadowsweet and wheat and barley, and oats with their white and spreading ears; whereas in Ithaca we have neither open fields nor racecourses, and the country is more fit for goats than horses, and I like it the better for that. None of our islands have much level ground, suitable for horses, and Ithaca least of all."
587
Menelaos smiled and took Telemakhos’ hand within his own. "What you say," said he, "shows that you come of good family. I both can, and will, make this exchange for you, by giving you the finest and most precious piece of plate in all my house. It is a mixing-bowl by Hephaistos’ own hand, of pure silver, except the rim, which is inlaid with gold. Phaidimos, king of the Sidonians, gave it me in the course of a visit which I paid him when I returned there on my homeward journey. I will make you a present of it."
Thus did they converse as guests kept coming to the king's house. They brought sheep and wine, while their wives had put up bread for them to take with them; so they were busy cooking their dinners in the courts.
Meanwhile the suitors were throwing discs or aiming with spears at a mark on the leveled ground in front of Odysseus’ house, and were behaving with all their old hubris. Antinoos and Eurymakhos, who were their ringleaders and much the foremost in aretê among them all, were sitting together when Noemon son of Phronios came up and said to Antinoos,
625
"Have we any idea, Antinoos, on what day Telemakhos returns from Pylos? He has a ship of mine, and I want it, to cross over to Elis: I have twelve brood mares there with yearling mule foals by their side not yet broken in, and I want to bring one of them over here and break him."
They were astounded when they heard this, for they had made sure that Telemakhos had not gone to the city of Neleus. They thought he was only away somewhere on the farms, and was with the sheep, or with the swineherd; so Antinoos said, "When did he go? Tell me truly, and what young men did he take with him? Were they freemen or his own bondsmen - for he might manage that too? Tell me also, did you let him have the ship of your own free will because he asked you, or did he take it by force [biê] without your leave?"
