United States or Botswana ? Vote for the TOP Country of the Week !
But the rest stayed where they were, for the speech of Halitherses displeased them, and they sided with Eupeithes; they therefore hurried off for their armour, and when they had armed themselves, they met together in front of the city, and Eupeithes led them on in their folly.
After fighting for some time they shot away to the right and were soon lost to view. Then Halitherses spake again, interpreting the omen: "Hearken, men of Ithaca, to my words, and to you, the suitors of Penelope, especially do I speak. Woe is coming upon you; I see it rising and swelling as a wave.
They tore each other with their talons, and then flew away across the City. An old man who was there, Halitherses by name, a man skilled in the signs made by birds, told those who were around what was foreshown by the combat of the eagles in the air. 'Odysseus, he said, 'is not far from his friends. He will return, and his return will mean affliction for those who insult his house.
The father of Antinoös arose and lifted up his voice crying for vengeance, but Medon, the herald, warned them that a god had taken part against them and that strife would be useless. Halitherses, a wise and reverend citizen, took up the word: "Ye men of Ithaca," he said, "give ear to what I have to say. Odysseus was not the cause of your misfortunes, but you, yourselves.
Leocritus said that knowing that Mentor and Halitherses were old and had few friends, and that they could do nothing to help Telemachus to get a ship. The council broke up and those who were in it scattered. But the wooers went together back to the house of Odysseus. Telemachus went apart, and, going by himself, came to the shore of the sea.
Now, therefore, do you people go about your business, and let his father's old friends, Mentor and Halitherses, speed this boy on his journey, if he goes at all which I do not think he will, for he is more likely to stay where he is till some one comes and tells him something."
Minerva endowed him with a presence of such divine comeliness that all marvelled at him as he went by, and the suitors gathered round him with fair words in their mouths and malice in their hearts; but he avoided them, and went to sit with Mentor, Antiphus, and Halitherses, old friends of his father's house, and they made him tell them all that had happened to him.
"The hand of Heaven," said Medon, "was made manifest in the deed. I myself saw Athene leading the onset, and your sons were laid low like ripe sheaves before the sickle." This report chilled their courage not a little; and Halitherses, seeing the effect produced, exerted all his eloquence to put an end to the blood feud.
The people wondered as they saw them, and asked each other what all this might be; whereon Halitherses, who was the best prophet and reader of omens among them, spoke to them plainly and in all honesty, saying: "Hear me, men of Ithaca, and I speak more particularly to the suitors, for I see mischief brewing for them.
And I say again to you of the council: you are many and the wooers are few: Why then do you not put them away from the house of Odysseus? But no one in the council took the side of Telemachus and Halitherses and Mentor so powerful were the wooers and so fearful of them were the men of the council. The wooers looked at Telemachus and his friends with mockery.
Word Of The Day