Ruin my home....”[[8]]
The goddess counselled immediate action—to go and seek Odysseus; and while the minstrel sang to the carousing suitors, Telemachus inwardly resolved that he would set sail as soon as might be for Pylos and Sparta, whither Athena directed him for tidings of his father. But he knew that he must act quietly; and above all, that his purpose must be kept a secret from his mother. She would certainly prevent his going, did she know, fearing to lose son as well as husband.
Meantime, as he pondered the matter, Penelope was listening from her lofty bower to the minstrel’s song in the hall below. He sang of the return of the heroes from Troy; and the words reawakened in her the old pain of longing for her husband. At last she could not bear to hear it any longer:
Straightway leaving her room by the high-built stair she descended;
Neither alone did she go; two maidens followed behind her.
So when at last she had come to the suitors, that fairest of women
Stood by the post of the door of the massively builded apartment,
Holding in front of her cheeks soft folds of her glistering head-dress.
There as she stood, with a trusty attendant on this and on that side,
Suddenly bursting in tears to the godlike bard she addressed her: