The sable Deep, and, sounding, swept the waves. He loud-exhorting them, his people bade 540 Hand, brisk, the tackle; they, obedient, reared The pine-tree mast, which in its socket deep They lodg'd, then strain'd the cordage, and with thongs Well-twisted, drew the shining sail aloft. A land-breeze fill'd the canvas, and the flood Roar'd as she went against the steady bark That ran with even course her liquid way. The rigging, thus, of all the galley set, Their beakers crowning high with wine, they hail'd The ever-living Gods, but above all 550 Minerva, daughter azure-eyed of Jove. Thus, all night long the galley, and till dawn Had brighten'd into day, cleaved swift the flood. FOOTNOTES: [6] The reader is to be reminded that this is not an assembly of the suitors only, but a general one, which affords Telemachus an opportunity to apply himself to the feelings of the Ithacans at large. BOOK III ARGUMENT Telemachus arriving at Pylus, enquires of Nestor concerning Ulysses. Nestor relates to him all that he knows or has heard of the Greecians since their departure from the siege of Troy, but not being able to give him any satisfactory account of Ulysses, refers him to Menelaus. At evening Minerva quits Telemachus, but discovers herself in going. Nestor sacrifices to the Goddess, and the solemnity ended, Telemachus sets forth for Sparta in one of Nestor's chariots, and accompanied by Nestor's son, Pisistratus.