Ketnrn  then  to  Ithaca.  Perhaps  your  father,  who  is  beloved
by  the  gods,  may  have  returned  already.  But  if  heaven  has
decreed  his  deaih,  if  he  shall  see  Ithaca  no  more,  it  is  fit  that
you  return  to  avenge  him  and  to  deliver  your  mother ;  to  dis-
play your  wisdom  to  attending  nations ;  and  to  let  all  Greece
behold,  in  Telemachus,  a  sovereign  not  less  worthy  of  the
throne  than  Ulysses.'

"  This  counsel,  which  was  the  voice  of  reason,  I  rejected,  and
listened  only  to  the  suggestions  of  my  passions ;  but  such  was


^  Telemachus,  setting  out  from  Ithaca  by  the  counsel  of  Minerva,  went
first  to  Pylos,  then  to  Sparta,  in  order  to  make  inquiries  of  Nestor  and
Menelaus  about  his  father.  See  the  Odyssey^  ii.  iii,  iv.  In  Homer,  the
voyage  of  Telemachus  ends  at  Sparta.
