Of [1]menials culinary, at the gate 750
Enter'd of Menelaus, Chief renown'd;
They brought him sheep, with heart-ennobling wine,
While all their wives, their brows with frontlets bound,
Came charg'd with bread. Thus busy they prepared
A banquet in the mansion of the King. 755
Meantime, before Ulysses' palace gate
The suitors sported with the quoit and spear
On the smooth area, customary scene
Of all their strife and angry clamour loud.
There sat Antinoüs, and the godlike youth 760
Eurymachus, superior to the rest
And Chiefs among them, to whom Phronius' son
Noëmon drawing nigh, with anxious mien
Question'd Antinoüs, and thus began.
Know we, Antinoüs! or know we not, 765
When to expect Telemachus at home
Again from Pylus? in my ship he went,
Which now I need, that I may cross the sea
To Elis, on whose spacious plain I feed
Twelve mares, each suckling a mule-colt as yet 770
Unbroken, but of which I purpose one
To ferry thence, and break him into use.
He spake, whom they astonish'd heard; for him
They deem'd not to Nelëian Pylus gone,
But haply into his own fields, his flocks 775
- ↑ Δαιτυμων—generally signifies the founder of a feast; but we are taught by Eustathius to understand by it, in this place, the persons employed in preparing it.
To
